


Mercy

by aurora_borealis



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:55:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27871153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_borealis/pseuds/aurora_borealis
Summary: The life of Enobaria, Sixty-Second Victor of the Hunger Games.
Relationships: Cashmere/Enobaria (Hunger Games)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> I've been interested in Enobaria's character for so many years, and getting back into the series gave me the incentive to write this ...  
> content warning for - disordered eating, abuse, and sexual violence

**Mercy**

“ _ENOBARBUS: That truth should be silent I had almost forgot._ ”- _Antony and Cleopatra_ , William Shakespeare

“ _Sometimes, when I’m careless, I believe the wound is also the place where the skin reencounters itself, asking of each end, where have you been?_ ”- _On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous_ , Ocean Vuong

Enobaria’s first memory of the Games is one where a girl from District Two wins. She’s in her friend Acte’s house, sitting on the floor in front of the television. Acte’s sister Sabina and the boy from District 4 are fighting in a desert, Sabina’s sword against the boy’s mace, when Sabina puts her sword through his heart. The boy falls to the ground and the television announces Sabina won, and Acte is clapping and Enobaria feels so excited that she knows the Victor, her friend’s sister, a brave older girl who will now have a house of her own in the Victor’s Village and maybe a television in every room and Enobaria and Acte will be able to play the best games in that big house. They clap and cheer on the floor, and they scream along with the crowd when Sabina appears in District Two during her Victory Tour, her hair blowing in the summer breeze.

A few days later at the playground Enobaria sees her classmate Bellona with her little brother Mars. Mars is crying and Bellona looks tired. “I want Virtus,” he keeps saying, “I want him to come home.” Virtus was the boy that year. He and Sabina rode on a chariot during the tribute parade wearing matching suits of armor. He died of a snakebite in the arena.

“He can’t. He’s not going to come home,” Bellona says, sounding like she’s saying it for the hundredth time. “I told you, Mars. He’s never coming home.” Now she sounds really upset. “I’ll get Ma, all right?”

Enobaria doesn’t realize it then, but years later, she’ll think this is when she came to understand that you don’t ever really win, even when you do win.

_

A few years later, there’s another Victor from Two, this time a boy. His name is Brutus. He is tall and strong and because of him District Two gets more food for another year and Enobaria’s parents are happy, and when you’re a child and your parents are happy, that makes you happy too. She likes when they don’t have to worry about adult things like _taxes_ and _affording_.

After his Tour, Brutus holds a block party in Victor’s Village, and Acte and her family say Enobaria and her family can come. “Pick us up, Brutus!” Enobaria and Acte ask him. They’ve seen how strong he is on TV, how he lifted his district partner up in the air over his head to help her climb a branch on a tree. (Her name was Candace. The pretty-boy from One shot her with his crossbow on the last day. Then Brutus got him.) Brutus holds up Enobaria on one of his arms and Acte on the other and they all laugh and someone takes a picture.

_

As Enobaria gets older, the Games and their Victors become part of her schoolwork. In class she learns about all the Two victors- Brutus, who scored an 11.5 in training and was favored by most bettors and most of the odds to win. Sabina, who hadn’t been expected to win at all, but outlasted everyone with her endurance, conservation of supplies, and mastery of different weapons rather than just one. Poppaea, who only ate or drank what her sponsors gave her, and learned how to fight from a long distance. Rocky, whose quickness helped him outrun mutts, fellow tributes, and lightning bolts during the heavy storms of his Games.

She also learns about the Victors of other districts, and why in those years, the tributes from Two did not win. Their mistakes, and how those mistakes could have been avoided; the successes or luck or tricks of the other tributes and how they could either be emulated, outsmarted, or just fought until it didn’t matter. Like Candace, who the District One boy shot in the back of the head. Always watch your back, that was the lesson, don’t depend entirely on a partner or ally, even one as strong and powerful as Brutus. And be aware of your surroundings, on all levels, because one year the tributes from Two (and other districts) didn’t do that, which was how they were off-guard enough to let Beetee Latier of District Three trap them in a magnetic field and electrocute them. They didn’t even know what was happening as it happened. There was also Blight from Seven, who just hid and waited. Sometimes the ones who do that are only doing it because they’re afraid, rightfully, and know they wouldn’t win in a fight. But sometimes they do it on purpose. They’re waiting like a hunter, waiting until only a few remain.

This is all important to know, Enobaria learns, because she could one day be in the arena, any of her classmates could. What she doesn’t know will hurt her, and what she does know will only help. And if it’s one piece of trivia from years ago that can keep her from dying in the arena and being a Victor, it’s worth knowing. But Enobaria suspects it’s more than that, and that nothing can entirely prepare you for being in there. Being in there is just different, and once you’re in you have to learn all on your own.

She’s still friends with Acte. Acte comes to her family’s house by the base of the mountain for sleepovers, or she goes to Acte’s, really Sabina’s, big house in the Victor’s Village, where they watch movies on a television big as a cinema screen, and read about the latest styles in the magazines from the corner store, and study together. Sometimes when Sabina is there she’ll help them with weight lifting exercises or painting their nails or she’ll let them watch movies that Enobaria’s parents probably wouldn’t because of her age, but Acte and Sabina’s parents say, if you won the Games you can handle a movie. But Sabina never, ever talks about the Games, never even mentions them. She barely even talks about the Capitol and doesn’t seem to like when Enobaria or Acte ask about what it’s like there and if the food is weird and does everyone really dress like that and how often do they recognize her on the street and do she and Brutus get to go to parties there, real parties, not like the boring parties she and Acte are used to, adult parties with gross wine boxes or kid parties where parents supervise and listen in on everything. In fact, she seems really upset when they bring it up.

“Oh you guys,” she says, pretending to be annoyed, but Enobaria can tell it’s worse than that. She doesn’t like being lied to, but Sabina isn’t her sister so maybe it isn’t even really her business. “Don’t be so immature about it. One day maybe one of you will have to go there, and you can’t act like you’re some little hick girl who’s never been out of the district.” Which, Enobaria thinks, is technically exactly what Sabina was before she won, and what she and Acte are right now. “And if you have to be mentors one day, you just get used to it anyway, and you have to focus your energy on your job,” she says, sounding almost tired of talking about it. Sounding like any old average adult, talking about focusing on a job.

Acte’s way taller than Enobaria. They’ve talked about it and Enobaria wonders if Acte ever told Sabina. They would probably want Acte to volunteer over Enobaria, because she’s bigger and Victors are often bigger, like Sabina who is so tall, and Brutus who was strong as two men at Reaping age, or even Poppaea, who Enobaria’s never met in person officially, but everyone knows she gets into barfights a lot, and always wins, and not just with other women.

Well, it won’t be a hypothetical situation soon enough. Enobaria and Acte will be of Reaping age within a few months, and next year the two of them will be standing in the square, and maybe hearing their names called. Maybe one day even volunteering.

_

For the first few Reapings she’s old enough for, they don’t call her name and she doesn’t volunteer, because of course, she’s still too young and inexperienced in training to really stand a chance. People from District Two aren’t stupid, despite how obvious it is that other districts seem to see them as arrogant, which is just another way of saying someone is stupid. She knows that as a twelve year old, a thirteen year old, her being from a Career District won’t mean much to older, stronger, and bigger kids from other districts, who may have years of experience in slaughtering cows twice their size and chopping down trees older than the Games, and wouldn’t see her as a threat to their scythes and swords and axes.

But, she comes to accept even though the school nurse who looks over all the students all the time doesn’t exactly say so, she knows she’s not going to get much bigger. She’s fourteen and still relatively small- for a girl, for her age, and certainly compared to the District Two girls and not just the ones who have won. But- she’s a real fighter, they tell her. She doesn’t give up or give in, she’s willing to learn anything, and improves and refines her skills when she practices. She doesn’t think they’ll ever encourage her to volunteer. There are bigger girls, like Acte, who can’t run as fast or hit targets as cleanly, but if it came down to a hand-to-hand fight, Enobaria doesn’t need to know who the other party would be to be able to say confidently she wouldn’t regret betting on Acte. “But would I have a chance if I got reaped?” Enobaria keeps asking one of the instructors at school.

She’s not an academy kid. But she knows she puts in as much effort as any of them. And effort doesn’t sound exciting, but when you watch the Games, it means a lot when there are tributes who just give up and don’t fight back because they “know” they can’t win. Who “knows” anything like that for sure? She always wonders. Everyone “knew” Poppaea wasn’t as strong as her Career allies but that didn’t stop her from winning. That’s why they promote her as a success story to District Two kids, including ones who aren’t in special academies, who don’t have a strong build, who aren’t Capitol favorites during training period. They thought she was boring. She wasn’t so boring when she put an arrow through the head of the last remaining tribute from a treetop when he was building a trap for her near her backpack, which she’d purposefully left on the ground to trick him. They just leave out the part about what happened to her after the Games, when she turned to liquor and morphling.

“Of course you would,” they tell her, and she thinks they mean it, but they always sound like they’re brushing her off. Like they’re saying, hey, who knows, anything could happen, anyone could survive. Even you. 

_

No matter which one of the boys gets called, everyone is pretty sure that Aries Keo, one of the older boys, will volunteer. Everyone at school likes Aries, he’s just one of those people who treat everyone well and seems to enjoy being around everyone. Enobaria thinks he has a good chance at winning, and making even those weird, frilly people in the Capitol like him too. There’s just something honest about him. She’s had to do school projects with him before – she’s in a class with some of the older kids on District Two history because she’s advanced in that area, and he’s in it too. They don’t hang around with each other outside of school really, but he’s always nice to her. He never gives her any shit for being small or goes after her the way some boys do to the girls. 

There aren’t any clear volunteers for the girls that year. It’s rumored that the academy, after a disappointing turnout with both their volunteer tributes from last year, is rethinking their training methods and focusing on teaching more successfully how to become a victor, rather than just choosing the boy and girl they think could most likely be a victor. No academy volunteers makes for a less predictable year.

Outside, some guy with blue hair and chalk-white makeup all over his face says he’s going to call the girls first. Acte and Enobaria are holding hands, having wished each other good luck. “If it’s me…” Enobaria had said gravely to her parents, as she’s said every year since she was twelve before she had to go wait with the other kids her age and leave them behind, “I’ll be thinking of you every day.” They both embraced her at once and didn’t say this time, _oh, Enobaria, you’re so young, one of the older girls would take the opportunity to go in your place_. She’s still on the younger side for a tribute, but not so young that someone would automatically volunteer.

The man’s Capitol accent seems to falter at her name. “…Enobaria…Hammersmith?” he calls. “Such unique, exciting names in District Two! Come up and say hello to the world, Enobaria!”

No way, Enobaria thinks. But of course it’s her. She doesn’t know any other Enobaria and certainly not one with her last name. She looks behind her, finding her parents in the crowd and tries to figure out their expressions as she walks ahead and finally makes it to the stage. She’s watched enough television to have an idea of what to do, but doesn’t want to just copy everyone else.

She waves to the crowd of people she knows from the stage. “Hello!” she says, and the blue-haired man laughs a little, and she wonders bitterly if he’s laughing at her, if he’s thinking, shouldn’t you be waving goodbye?

“And now, let’s find out who will go to the Games with Enobaria!” He enunciates her name, drawing out the first “a” in it., and moves to the other glass bowl, until his beringed hands clasp around one slip of paper. “The boy from District Two will be…Hunter Stone!” no one even gets a chance to see Hunter, because before he can move or do anything, before the cameras can point him out to Capitol viewers, a tall boy with short black hair speed-walks ahead to the stage from his place at the front of the crowd, the area for the oldest boys. It’s Aries Keo.

“I volunteer as Tribute,” Aries says, raising his fist in the air, his voice even. And the blue-haired man’s eyes widen in excitement.

“And there you have it! A proud volunteer from District Two! Come, children, get together so the cameras can catch you,” the man says to Aries and Enobaria. She smiles at Aries and Aries puts his arm on her shoulder and smiles at the crowd. His teeth are crooked but his smile is genuine. Enobaria smiles with her mouth closed. She can see her face projected on the screen, and it’s so strange she barely moves. But this is her life now, either for the next couple of weeks or for the rest of her life. Seeing herself reflected on big screens.

Next to Aries, she realizes in the back of her mind, she probably only has the few weeks. But she knows him, and trusts him. He won’t betray her or leave her behind the way some people have done to their allies and district partners. He has _honor_ the way kids from Two are taught. Her throat feels tight. And she lets herself smile a little wider, knowing her parents will at least have that. If they have to watch her die, it won’t be so bad. Most likely, she won’t be all alone. She’ll have a boy from Two protecting her until the end, and everyone will know that the boy from Two will give the girl from Two her final rites (this is what happens even though the cameras do not always show it, although Enobaria thinks the Capitol people are just not familiar with District Two’s final rites), and he’ll come home and win and provide for everyone including her family. He’ll do them right. He’ll do her right. His hand feels steady on her shoulder, and she thinks how small her shoulder must feel to him.

_

Enobaria says goodbye to her parents and she barely knows what to say to them. “If I don’t come back-” she tries to figure out what to say.

“No,” her father says, looking her in the eye, “you will. We believe in you. We’re not giving up on you.”

“Don’t think you won’t come back,” her mother implores. “Please, Enobaria.”

“Okay,” she says to them quietly. But then she has to go on the train with Aries and the blue haired guy. The blue haired guy is actually named Helvius, and he’s Enobaria and Aries’ Capitol escort. He brings them to the train after both of them say goodbye to their families. Before they get on the train, Enobaria looks up at Aries, who’s almost as tall as Acte.

“Have you ever been outside Two? I haven’t,” she says.

“It’s my first time too,” he says, and takes her hand and helps her step up onto the train. Helvius didn’t help her, she notices. When they get on the train it’s almost like a house in there, with how big and ornate it is. She doesn’t even notice it’s moving, and supposedly it’s going hundreds of miles an hour. While they look out the windows, Enobaria and Aries share a large box of chocolates. Caramel, mint, wafer. The mountains pass by them. Pretty soon, in the middle of Helvius monologuing about all the nice accommodations the train has and how it will be even better once they get to the Capitol and how this is truly the opportunity of a lifetime for children from a place as utilitarian and rustic as Two (“it’s actually really nice,” Aries says, as is Helvius has just been misinformed, when they all know that Helvius has to have been a district escort for at least a few years and has gotten to know the tributes of Two and either hasn’t bothered to understand where they came from or doesn’t care)- someone else comes in. Their mentor, Enobaria realizes, and sees that it’s Brutus, who is now a young man, an actual adult man and not just a big teenage boy who seemed grown-up to her when she was a little kid and met him at the block party.

“Hey,” Brutus says, his voice deep and confident. “Enobaria, Aries. It’s great to be able to be with you this year.” He smiles a little. Enobaria smiles back, and Aries stands up to shake his hand.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Slate,” Aries says. “I’m really grateful we’ll have your help. You’ve done so much for Two.” He had. Not only had he fed them all with his winnings, but he’d used some of his money to open up programs for Two’s young people, as well as creating special scholarships at the academy, and donating to Strabo Plinth Community College.

“Mr. Slate!” Brutus says, surprised. “You two can just call me Brutus. I’m your mentor, not your president.”

“Do you remember me?” Enobaria asks. “At the block party you had when you won. I was the girl with Sabina’s younger sister and we made you lift us in the air.” She smiles a little and to her relief, so does Brutus.

“Well, it’s good to meet you again, then,” says Brutus, genially, but there’s something in his eyes Enobaria can’t make out.

“Aren’t there usually two mentors, one for each tribute?” Enobaria asks. Helvius inhales sharply like she’s said something she shouldn’t have. Brutus is quiet for a moment, but doesn’t look away from her. He looks like he’s choosing his words carefully before saying them.

“The Capitol is trying something different this year,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate, which is how Enobaria knows he’s not supposed to say anything more and she and Aries aren’t supposed to know what it is. Out of the corner of her eye she looks at Helvius and wonders what he knows and what he isn’t saying when he talks about crystal faucets and other things like that, things that won’t help her at all when it comes down to her survival, which is the exact reason why she and Aries are here, and Helvius is acting like they’re going on a vacation, and for a moment, she hates him for that.

“Anyway, we’re almost at the Capitol now,” Brutus says. “It always strikes me how close we are to it,” he says, sounding like he’s talking to himself, but it’s clear he’s saying it to Aries and Enobaria. We, Enobaria thinks. Like they’re a team, which maybe they are, at least for the time being. She doesn’t ask Brutus if he thinks they can win, because Aries clearly has a shot at it and there’s no question about that, and she doesn’t want to make him answer the question of whether or not he thinks she’ll live or if the academy shouldn’t have just told their strongest girl to volunteer if they really wanted a Two girl to win this year.

Enobaria looks out the window. Far in the distance, but not too far, there’s a skyline of a city that can only be the Capitol. Finally, she thinks, she’ll see what it’s like for real. The thought is much less exciting than it was when she was eleven. Brutus doesn’t even look out the window, and she thinks about how Sabina never wanted to talk about what the Capitol was like. For a moment, Enobaria allows herself to wish the trip would be just a little longer, and she and Aries can just have a few hours more of eating special chocolates and trying not to make each other laugh at Helvius’ accent and hair.

“You’re very fortunate to be so close,” Helvius says brightly. “You can travel between your district and the Capitol so easily, and if one of you wins, you might like vacationing there even more than annually.” He seems to cut himself off when Brutus shoots him a look that seems to be not threatening, but warning. If one of us wins, Enobaria thinks. If. And only one. She doesn’t want to say it in front of Brutus, and she doesn’t want to talk about any of this at all around Helvius, but soon, she wants to talk about it with Aries. It’s all up to him, she doesn’t even need to see the other tributes to know that. He has to go home, and bring her memory back if she can’t go back with him.

_

Enobaria doesn’t recognize herself after the stylists are done with her. She has all this gold makeup on and gold clothes – could there be actual gold pigmentation in any of this? In the mirror, the girl who looks back doesn’t look like some freaky Capitol girl in a costume. She looks elegant and cool and regal. “Don’t let anyone tell you Two girls can’t look pretty!” one of the stylists says triumphantly. Enobaria thinks this is supposed to be a compliment but it certainly doesn’t feel like one.

Aries is all in gold too, gold clothes and gold streaks in his hair and gold chain jewelry. He smiles at her. “Look at us!” he says. “Can you believe it?” she laughs a little. It’s like one of those childhood stories where the princess who lives in a cellar gets to go to the ball and get rid of the plain old clothes for the night. But Enobaria won’t be wearing a mask like that story and everyone is going to know who she is. At least for the time being, she’ll be unforgettable. She and Aries.

“Check out these shoes!” she says, sticking out her foot. She’s never worn heels like that before.

“I’ll help you,” Aries says with joking graveness, and picks her up, and Enobaria hasn’t laughed this hard in she doesn’t know how long. The stylists look disapproving, and the two of them just laugh harder. Sure, she may die soon. But everyone dies, Enobaria thinks. Why should that stop her from appreciating her life?

_

Their stylists are getting them ready for the tribute parade, and all twenty-four tributes are in the same room being dressed up together. The small boy from Three is shaking, and Enobaria just feels sorry for him. If he’s got stage fright, he won’t survive long in the arena. He has to know that. Whenever she sees little kids like that, she wonders why the older and stronger ones don’t just volunteer.

Aries and Enobaria have been dressed in stylized outfits that are supposed to make them look kind of like mountaineers, or at least, Capitol fashion models wearing clothes inspired by mountaineers with climbing gear thrown on like avant-garde jewelry. Crystalline layers of fake snowflakes dust their heads and shoulders, as if they’ve actually been climbing on frosty mountaintops. Enobaria wonders how much that alone cost.

In front of her are the District One tributes, Duke and Minka, who are outfitted in glaringly shiny bodysuits that are completely covered in vivid purple sequins. “Yeah,” Minka says, rolling her eyes, but not at her or Aries. “I know. We look so stupid. You’d think they would spend the money on better outfits given how much they have.”

“And even then!” Duke smiles, shaking his head. “They always come up with the dumbest concepts for One. Just because we make their fancy things doesn’t mean we live like that. Now you guys look badass.”

“Thanks,” Enobaria says. (“You think so?” Aries says to him.)

“Yeah, he’s right,” Minka says. “And finally, you guys in Two get something different. The warrior thing is cool but you get that every year. This, now this is creative and different and actually tells people about your district.”

“I don’t know if our stylists were thinking about it that deeply, but I guess it looks good,” Aries says. “And don’t worry about looking dumb. Soon enough you’re going to show them all who you are and you won’t have to wear those stupid leotards.” The interviews, Enobaria thinks. Should she be wondering about what they’ll ask her? Will they try and throw her with trick questions?

“After the parade we can have a ceremony and burn them if you’re up to it,” Enobaria says, which gets a laugh out of Aries and the One tributes. It’s good they’re all getting along like they’re supposed to, she thinks, One and Two are always supposed to be allies and it’s always a shitshow when they’re not. Like the year both One and Two turned on each other and butchered one another and then all four tributes were dead on the first day.

“If you’re, you know. _Allowed_ ,” intones Aries, with an exaggerated Capitol accent, and Minka giggles.

“This is so fucking boring just standing in line!” shouts a girl, and Enobaria turns and sees it’s the girl from Four, who is smiling crookedly. The Four tributes are dressed as a mermaid and a merman. Almost all the tributes laugh.

“It’s like the fire drills at school,” Minka calls back. And everyone mock-groans, but Enobaria wonders if some of these kids wouldn’t rather be back at school going through the fire drills right now. The tiny boy from Three probably does. He and his partner, an older girl, have these weird costumes that center around big headdresses that make them look like their heads are in the center of flashing television screens. The headpiece looks too big for him. The girl looks miserable, and smells like liquor. She wonders if they’re being mentored by Beetee Latier –but, Enobaria thinks, he’s all about strategy, there’s no way he’d allow one of his tributes to get hammered like this even if he thought she was hopeless and would be the first to die. Now the District Twelve kids are mentored by Haymitch Abernathy, who at this point is just as famous for drinking as he is for winning the second Quarter Quell. Every year both his tributes die. She wonders if he ever sends them flasks in the arena, just to dull the pain, a kind of mercy. Maybe, Enobaria thinks, looking past the Three tributes, this will be a year when the first two districts have a Four as an ally, given that District Four is the other Career district, the one that gets overlooked as such. The Four girl is tall and looks strong.

“How are we even supposed to walk in these tail things?” the Four girl is asking a stylist. The Four boy and girl seem to be holding each other up. 

“Oh dear, calm down!” their stylist, a woman with neon orange hair, tells her. “Neither of you will be walking, you’ll be on chariots, remember?” The Four girl sighs. The lights flicker, to notify them it’s almost time.

Aries grabs her hand and smiles at her. “You ready?” he asks her. She shakes her head, yes.

“This will probably be the easiest part,” she says.

Often in her life, during and after the Games, she thinks about saying that.

_

The Four girl is named Anahit and the boy is named Padraig. Ananhit is tall, with dark curly hair and light brown skin, and Padraig has coppery hair and a sturdy build. They look like fighters and they’ll be good allies to have especially if the arena has anything involving bodies of water. But aside from that, Enobaria just likes them. One, Two, and Four, allies and friends. It looks and sounds good, and even though Enobaria is the youngest of them all, and the smallest, and probably the least likely to win; with these allies, she’s in good hands. She won’t die of infection or exposure or starvation, she won’t be left to fend for herself, she won’t be butchered, she won’t be the little kid that can’t do anything but run and die first because she makes the bad decision to run straight into the Cornucopia. Her family will never have to see that happen to her. She and her new friends haven’t discussed that – she hasn’t brought it up – but she doesn’t think she has to.

She knows that at some point in the arena she’ll inevitably kill a few of the others. She doesn’t particularly like to think about it- it won’t be something she enjoys – but it will be about surviving, so she thinks about it anyway, because she has to. And they probably are thinking the same. Maybe she’ll have to do it after they kill one of her allies. Then maybe it will come easier.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Brutus tells them when they’re alone. “Forget what you’ve heard them say about me.” Brutus the Brutal. The Victor who made it all look so easy because for him, it was. Enobaria has already guessed it wasn’t like that. That’s not who Brutus is, from what she’s seen, having gotten to know him. “It’s physically difficult to do, and someone has to tell you this, but if you think it won’t be a mentally difficult process to get through, you’re mistaken. Even when you have no other choice but to defend yourself.” Brutus is saying this seriously, but understandingly, like he knows he has to say all this. Like he’s talking to her and Aries as people who he shares an understanding with, and Enobaria realizes the Capitol adults speak to them in the exact opposite way.

“For example,” Brutus begins. “You may have seen tributes use rocks as weapons to bludgeon the other tributes. Often, it works. But often it doesn’t, too. Think about that. It might be doable enough to raise it and bring it down. But if you don’t do it very hard, you might give that other tribute a long, drawn out death. Their allies might want to get revenge against you. Or they might pretend to be dead for a moment and then get you. Or,” he says, gesturing outwards. “Say it’s lights out for the poor bastard you hit. And so you think, it’s all done. But maybe something will happen to you, and then they’re still alive and at the end of the Games the Victor’s in a coma they’ll never get out of, and it was all for nothing. It’s in your power to prevent something like that, if you know what you’re doing.”

“But that hasn’t….happened before, has it?” Aries asks, shocked by the very idea. They would have heard about it, Enobaria thinks. Unless it was from the time before Mags Flanagan, 11th Victor. Mags from Four is a legend, the first Victor from the Games when President Snow had any influence, although back then he wasn’t the President. Before, the Games were different, but Enobaria isn’t sure exactly how, they never really learned that in school. Probably not government-approved to have it be public knowledge.

Brutus shakes his head. “Thankfully, no. And it won’t happen, at least not this year. Because what you’re going to do, when you kill- not if, but when – is you’re going to make it quick. Quick as you can. Learn how to use your weapons so that you can make it quick. And be sure enough with your weapons so that you can do a thorough job and not have to worry about whether or not they’re still alive or not. One of the important things to know in order to be able to do this is to remember where the arteries are. Did they teach you this in school?”

“We kind of learned a little about this in science,” Enobaria says, after a quiet moment, almost forgetting to speak out loud.

Brutus nods. “All right. That’s a good start,” he nods, getting out an anatomy book. “These will be important to memorize.” Aries starts to write something down on a piece of paper, but Enobaria just moves forward in her chair, leaning over the table. She can’t bring any notes into the arena. She wants to remember every word.

_

It’s the night of the interviews, and Brutus is right by Enobaria and Aries’ side, dressed plainly unlike his tributes, all done up for their television appearances. “Don’t let him intimidate you with his questions,” he says. “He might not set you traps, but all the same, it can be a lot to be in front of a big crowd like that being interviewed for the whole country. Just don’t let them see you nervous. No matter how you’re feeling, I understand, but just … keep it inside until afterwards. All right?” he says. Enobaria knows that the Victor has to deal with the Capitol forever, and Brutus is speaking from experience. It doesn’t seem like he’s had an entirely good experience here. At first, she’d thought it was just that someone from Two would prefer home to this bizarre place. Now, she senses it’s much deeper.

“Of course,” Aries says. “Besides, it can’t be as bad as the arena.”

Brutus laughs. It doesn’t sound like a very happy laugh. “No shit, kids,” he says to both of them. “But the thing about the arena is that if you’re district, the whole Capitol is the arena. This is something Victors learn pretty quick. If you want to be Victors, you should be aware victory isn’t just happy crowds in your hometown and having big dinners all year.” Enobaria nods.

“I just hope I don’t laugh at that guy’s hair while he tries to talk to me,” she says, trying to lighten the mood. The interviewer always switches it up from one strange color to another, and tonight it’s some kind of mint green.

Minka is supposed to be interviewed first, and then Duke. Ladies first. Once Enobaria goes backstage with Aries, she sees all the other tributes waiting. Heather, the girl from District Eleven, is quietly waiting, wearing a silk ballgown printed with sunflowers that looks striking against her dark skin. Weft, the pale, skinny boy from District Eight, is wearing a patchwork quilt suit compiled of elaborate, fancy Capitol fabrics of all different colors.

Enobaria is wearing a high-necked black dress that reaches her knees with golden crystal-studded combat boots. She thinks her dress is conservative in the way that younger girls are meant to be dressed, like Meadow, the little girl from Twelve in her puff sleeves, but she supposes it isn’t that bad compared to some of the other things the girls have been made to wear. Like Anahit, in the parade her mermaid costume didn’t have a real top half and she had to wear ropes of pearl necklaces that just barely covered part of her breasts and left the rest of her exposed, and now she has on huge bedazzled a vinyl sea-foam green dress that looks like it’s painted on her skin, that she keeps adjusting because of how tiny it is. Enobaria wonders if the stylists think she’s ugly or if they think she looks like a little kid. But then, she’d rather not have to go out dressed like Anahit, or like Minka, who is wearing a dress with such thin fabric it’s essentially see-through. Even Rosario, the lithe boy from Ten, is wearing a dress shirt that he keeps buttoning up, and his stylist keeps making him unbutton it all the way down all over again. (He and his district partner, Brie, a blonde girl who towers over him, don’t seem to talk much to each other. Maybe they don’t have much of an alliance.) 

“So. _Enobaria_ ,” enunciates Caesar Flickerman, the ridiculous interviewer, when she’s on the couch, the third tribute to be shown. “What do you think the audience should know about _you_?” His jovial tone makes her wonder if he’s making fun of her, if she isn’t in on a joke that the whole Capitol is on.

She looks out into the crowd and smiles calmly, with her mouth closed. Not too big, this isn’t a school picture. She doesn’t want to come off like some camera-hungry idiot who won’t last a day in the arena. “Well,” she begins, folding her hands on her lap. “I could maybe say a few things about myself, or I could tell you all to wait and see when the Games begin. Then you’ll learn a lot about me.” She makes herself sound a little mischievous, like she’s letting them in on a secret. Not Flickerman, the faceless mass of the audience, and all the people back home and the other districts watching on the television.

The crowd roars. They like her? Or at least what she said. “Now there’s an interesting young lady! If I’m catching what you’re letting on, you’re going to give Panem a very exciting show?” Flickerman grins at her, his teeth obviously fake. She wonders if getting them done hurt.

“More than that,” she says. “I hope when my district watches me, they’ll be proud.” More applause, but not as much. Maybe the people who bet on Two. Maybe some sentimental people think it’s quaint when the tributes say things about their district.

“I am sure they will be,” Flickerman says with seriousness that doesn’t sound genuine. _But they will,_ Enobaria thinks. _You can say whatever you want about me. But I’m not fighting for you or the Capitol._ That is something she knows she’ll never be able to say, but thinking it is satisfactory enough.

_

Brutus meets them before the Games that morning. He can’t be underneath both of the elevator-like tubes for his tributes, but he tells them he wanted to see the both of them all the same. “You both deserve a fair shot, and not only that, you both deserve the respect a mentor owes their tributes,” he says to them, one hand on her shoulder, the other hand on Aries’. Enobaria wonders again what she hadn’t been told.

She got a good score, and so did Aries. But when the odds were calculated hers were the lowest out of all the One, Two, and Four candidates, and lower than even some of the other districts. That giant girl Brie had better odds than she did. John from Seven was close behind. Enobaria hardly realizes what she’s doing until she’s doing it, and she’s wrapping her arms around Brutus (which is kind of difficult given how big he is). “Thank you for everything,” she tells him.

“Hey,” Brutus says, looking at her and then Aries. “I’ll be watching you all the way. And you just remember everything I told you. I believe in you kids. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you had a chance.” But only one of them really has a chance, and Brutus knows that. She wonders who he’s really talking to.

Enobaria nods. Even if Brutus thinks she’s going to die, even if she does die, she’s a warrior trained by one of the best, and she will not see herself as a tragedy. No matter what happens.

“Thank you so much, Brutus,” Aries tells him. “Our families…they would be grateful for what you’ve done for us.”

“You can do this,” Brutus tells them. “I know you can.”

And then they all have to leave each other and wait for it to begin.

_

After the cannons go off the first thing Enobaria hears is the boy from Three screaming “Volta! Volta!” again and again, but no cannons go off, so obviously he and his district partner, who must be well and dried out by now, have successfully ran off to hide. For the time being. She makes eye contact with Aries and runs forward to meet him at the Cornucopia, shoving the girl from Seven, Maple, to the ground on the way as they almost collide with each other. She and Aries go for the supplies first, the bags of food and water. Minka and Duke and Anahit and Padraig are there, too, getting weapons. Enobaria goes to reach for a set of knives when she feels her other arm being pulled, and digs her feet in the ground so the rest of her won’t go along.

She looks and it’s Brie. If the Games were a wrestling match, now, it might be all over. But it’s not all about brute strength. Brie is looking at her probably the way she looks at animals when she leads them to the slaughterhouse. But that isn’t Enobaria, and she uses her free arm to take one of the knives and throw it right into Brie’s neck. Arteries, she remembers. And a few moments later, after the blood has finished its flourish into the air, the cannons are going off, and not for Enobaria, and if anyone thought that she didn’t have it in her to make it, that she was here just so she could die first and make it easier for everyone else, so she could be a name on someone’s kill list, that she was just a set of numbers on a list of odds, they were wrong. She secures her knives in her bag, and she hears the cannons again, and Aries takes the sword and some supplies, and Duke is fighting over an axe with John, and John tries to swing at his head but Duke lunges and John decides to run for it with the axe in hand, but there are other weapons, and Duke is alive. Minka is waving her mace at Weft, who’s got a crossbow, but Anahit helps her out and spears him quick and the cannon goes off. On the ground, two of the smaller kids are beating each other senseless with just their hands. In the distance, Heather and Rosario are running off, carrying some large box together. And the bloodbath seems to be over, and when Enobaria looks around, the arena environment seems to be plains, like District Nine. (The Nine kids must feel like they’ve struck gold.)

“Let’s find a place,” Aries says, breaking the silence, and they move ahead, into the plains. His sword is dripping and red, but he stops to wipe it dry with a towel, like Anahit is doing to her spear. “Good idea,” he says to her. “We don’t want to leave a trail.”

“We’re the Careers,” Duke says, not with any arrogance, just matter-of-factly. “They might be too afraid to follow us.”

“Hm,” Padraig says. “I don’t know. Some people like a challenge.”

“And some people don’t know the difference between a challenge and getting themselves in over their heads,” Enobaria finds herself saying. She wonders how that’s being spun by the Capitol. _Aw, the little girl is smart, too bad she won’t last long,_ maybe. Or, _this girl is way more vicious than we thought, those Two girls are nasty brutes, this awful girl must think she’s owed a win._ Or maybe- _we should keep an eye on her. She just might be one to watch_.

But she supposes, she won’t ever know what they were saying unless she wins, and she’s not going to get ahead of herself. For now, she just has to make sure she gets through the day, which may be seen as a given for Twos, but is nothing to take for granted. You can’t even take the simplest things for granted. That’s something Enobaria knows, but what the people from the Capitol seem not to, and they don’t seem to understand she knows that deep in her marrow, and people from Two learn to value what it means to survive long before they’re old enough to go to the arena. Because there are a lot of things to learn in order to know how to survive, if you’re going to want to do it.

And Enobaria does want it. Survival, that’s another thing you don’t take for granted, and even if she only lives another day, she never will take it for granted, because she never has.

_

“That bruise looks rough,” Padraig tells Anahit as they all sit around and eat some of the Cornucopia bread. Apparently, Brie had used her fists before she died. “She didn’t break anything?” Anahit had rubbed her face for sensitive areas, checking to see if she might have broken her jaw or loosened a tooth.

Anahit shakes her head. “It looks way worse than it is,” she says reassuringly. “And anyway it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as when they waxed my pussy.” Everyone is silent for a moment, and Aries’ mouth makes a little round o of surprise. Enobaria realizes she’s laughing, saying, I know, and so is Minka, and Anahit is saying “you know what I’m talking about, see?” (why had the stylists even done that?) and then everyone is laughing and Minka is wiping away tears and Enobaria really doesn’t want to see any of them die. But she knows she probably will. Because she’s not so certain she’ll die first among them. But for now, no one’s starving or freezing, there are no mutts or storms, and all of the other tributes are probably laying low and getting their bearings before they can hope to face Enobaria and the others in her group.

They practice doing push-ups and sparring with each other while talking about their districts and what they’re like as well as all the weird things they bonded over discovering in the Capitol. “I didn’t even know pink champagne existed,” Minka says. “I guess it’s cool they let us have some even though we’re not of drinking age.” She stops for a moment and looks down, as if realizing that there is a good chance she won’t ever make it to that age, that maybe none of them will.

“Being here,” Anahit says, laying down in the tall grass, “makes me think about how I’ve never actually been to a place like this. And that so many people never get to see the ocean in person. It makes me kind of sad, honestly.”

“Or the mountains,” Aries says. “The ones in Two are even bigger than the ones in Twelve.”

“We have mountains too,” Padraig corrects. “And nothing compares to the ocean.”

Duke sighs, spreading out his arms and legs as he lays back. “I don’t mind it here. It’s relaxing,” he says. It won’t be for long, Enobaria thinks, but she knows that’s not the point, he means that if this was a real place, and the real places that look like this, are, to him, relaxing. Something he’d have liked to see, something he’d enjoy visiting if he got a Victory Tour around all the districts.

“I guess we should enjoy it while we can,” Anahit sighs. No one answers. “Don’t be sad,” she says. “Seriously. We all die. But you don’t know what comes after and people remember you when you die. You still lived. You can get killed, but no one can ever get rid of the fact that you existed.”

Enobaria thinks about that, and years after the Games she’ll still be thinking about lying down in the tall grass and hearing Anahit say that.

“Well, if I win, I’m definitely never forgetting any of you,” says Duke, sounding emotional.

“Hey,” Minka says, trying to lighten the mood, “who says I won’t win?”

“You all right, Enobaria?” Aries asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m fine.”

That hour, the amount of people in the Capitol betting on Enobaria rises to an unprecedented level. She’s quiet- that will work in her favor, the gamblers decide. She probably won’t win, but she’ll outlast a good number of other tributes. Good money can be made from her. She isn’t exactly what they expected.

_

Cannons in the night and pictures in the sky. Volta, District Three. Link, District Three. Electra, District Five. Solar, District Five. Wheeler, District Six. Track, District Six. Weft, District Eight. Milla, District Nine. Brie, District Ten. Herbert, District Eleven. River, District Twelve.

_

Enobaria wakes to being shaken by Aries. “Wake up, we have to run,” he yells, and there’s a loud sound in the distance like wind, more wind than she’s ever heard before. She hopes it isn’t the mutts. Not yet. She rubs her eyes and sits up and gasps when she sees, over the tall grasses in the early morning sunlight, not one, but two tornadoes. Swirling around each other like two drunken dancers. Minka screams and jumps up and then they’re all up, running, Padraig yelling out “oh Brigid save us” as he almost forgets his bag. Enobaria doesn’t know how long she’s running for and she doesn’t look back at the tornadoes, only lets herself look back far enough to see the other tributes. Every once in a while, Aries, who’s the only one faster than her, turns back and asks if everyone’s there. They keep yelling, every few moments, I’m here, I’m here. Enobaria’s legs and chest hurt. She doesn’t think she’s ever run for this long, but she can’t stop. Not yet.

There’s a loud noise and a yell and she snaps backward and sees Duke has tripped over a rock and fallen down flat. “No!” Minka screams and freezes in place.

“Run, Minka!” Duke yells, trying to get up, but he’s limping. He can’t run, he can’t even walk fast. Enobaria can hear Minka crying as she gasps for breath while running. “It’s okay,” Duke is calling forward, “one of you win for me.”

“No,” yells Minka, not looking backwards. And then Duke is screaming wordlessly and the winds are closer and Enobaria makes herself jump ahead step by step and the sound of the cannon going off is almost muffled by the winds, and Minka is crying harder and Enobaria wishes she’d stop because it hurts to listen to, and the wind is getting further and further away. And then it’s over. Enobaria is kneeling on the ground, her heart racing so fast she wonders if she could possibly have a heart attack and die right there. Aries is on one knee, his hand over his chest. Anahit is lying down and gasping and Padraig is sitting with his head in his hands. Minka is looking back, where the tornadoes were. There’s a hovercraft lifting someone up, and it has to be Duke. She’s mouthing no, no, and crying slightly less harder.

“Hey,” Aries tells her. “It’s not your fault, Minka.” That doesn’t help, Enobaria thinks, what if she doesn’t think it was her fault? But it’s nice that he’s saying something. “I’m- I’m sorry,” he tells her.

Padraig gets up and wraps his arms around her, and then they’re all circling around her. “He wouldn’t want you to just give up,” Anahit whispers.

“Okay,” says Minka quietly.

“You can do it,” Enobaria says. Do what, she’s not entirely sure. Keep going, not lie down and die, maybe. Minka smiles at her crookedly, her eyes still wet and shining. She takes her hand in hers and holds on tight.

“All right,” Minka says, a One girl to a Two girl. The districts with the most wins, but really, it’s always the boys they expect to win. Even when the girls do win. “Let’s do this.”

_

Cannons in the night and a picture in the sky. Duke, District One.

_

Rosario, John and Maple, and Heather catch up with them late in the afternoon. It’s really not much of a fight- Rosario manages to fire an arrow that grazes Aries’ exposed arm, and Enobaria manages to throw a knife at his bow hard enough to break it to splinters. John and Heather try to shield him, but Aries charges with his sword, and the length of the blade goes through Rosario’s heart, and the sound of the cannon comes again. John and Maple and Heather run after that.

“You should clean your wound,” Enobaria tells Aries. She remembers Brutus talking about how many people die of infection every year and she can’t stand to watch that happen when it feels so preventable. So Aries takes some of his water from his canteen and rubs it in his wound.

“It still stings,” he says. “I guess I’ll just leave it open so it can breathe.”

“If only we had salt water. That’s always good for wounds,” Padraig tells him.

“Yeah, if only we had salt water, if it was an ocean arena you or Anahit would have won by now,” Minka says, trying to be playful about it but there’s a sadness, a bitterness in her face Enobaria notices but doesn’t call attention to. Infighting is pointless, especially to start it over nothing. Besides, it’s true. Mags Flanagan had an ocean arena and she won, and she’s been a legend ever since, in the whole country and not just her district. Enobaria wonders if a mountain range arena would be an easy win for her, or anyone from Two. An easy win would feel wrong, like she’d cheated, like she’d have to look over her shoulder forever. It’s strange. People in the Capitol seem to build up people from Two like they’re machines, but Enobaria feels like being from Two means constantly having to prove herself over and over, above and beyond.

So they walk forward. One of the sponsors gives Aries some mineral water in a little parachute container, probably to replace what he used. It’s a warm late afternoon, going on evening, in the arena. Enobaria looks straight ahead, and sees only waves of tall grasses. From her bedroom window at home she can look up and see mountains. She misses home. She wants to show it to her friends, but no matter what happens, she’ll never be able to.

_

Cannons in the night and pictures in the sky. Satine, District Eight. Rosario, District Ten. Heather, District Eleven. Meadow, District Twelve.

_

Aries wakes up wincing. The night before he’d kept on putting his fingers in his canteen and rubbing them on his wound, but by the morning, it’s clear that his wound is only going to get worse, and Enobaria wants to be sick looking at his raised, discolored veins, the sickness all over his arm and hand, and certainly visible on the skin covered by his shirt. Poison, she realizes, and he must know too. Rosario had been smart- a lot of victors had won, or at least gotten by longer than they may have otherwise, with poison.

“If we cut the flesh cleanly enough,” she says- no one else has spoken, no one else wants to- “maybe the poison can leave your body.”

Aries looks at her with what looks like sympathy, even though he’s the one who’s going to die. He’s going to die slowly of poison and he’s going to wait until it reaches his heart and it could take hours. It could take days. She doesn’t know. She never bothered to learn about poisoning techniques.

“No,” he says, “we can’t. You know we can’t, Enobaria,” he says softly.

Anahit starts to say something but just makes a strangled noise and stops talking, looking at him, her eyes wide with horror.

“Maybe,” Padraig says, “you can use one of the salves the sponsor gave Anahit for her bruise.”

“That is not a bruise,” Anahit says tonelessly.

“Listen to me,” Aries says firmly, but with gentleness. He’s talking to all of them. “I’m not going to survive. The poison is in my bloodstream. It’s too late, even if I got airlifted to the best hospital in the Capitol.” So what are we supposed to do, Enobaria wants to ask, but she knows the answer.

He looks at her, and she knew it was coming and she knows what he’s going to say. This is all wrong, it’s not supposed to happen like this. That’s what keeps going through her mind. “It has to be you,” he says, “you have to be the one to do it.”

“I-” she hardly knows what to say and stops talking so her voice doesn’t shake. This is probably the hardest thing she’s ever have to do, she realizes. “When,” she says.

“I think it should be done now. There’s no chance for me and I don’t want to slow any of you down. And I don’t want to…feel it getting worse,” she can tell he’s trying to keep himself composed and mostly he’s succeeding. She keeps swallowing hard. Aries looks straight at her again. “Give me the rites when you’re done,” he says, almost smiling. “So I can have something to eat in the next life.”

She wonders if his family will hate her- not for what he’s asking her to do, because if he’s going to die in the Games this is probably the best way for him, quickly and mercifully by someone who knows him and respects him and will give him what he needs in death, but for the fact that he’ll never come home and she still has a chance.

Enobaria is getting out a piece of bread from her bag so she can put some crumbs on his body, for when he dies. Her knife is cool against her other hand. She can hear Minka’s ragged breathing, like she has to make an effort to breathe normally. Anahit looks frozen, and Padraig’s knuckles are white as death.

“Goodbye,” she hears Anahit saying. Padraig and Minka are saying things too, and Aries has lain himself out, and Enobaria is kneeling over him, looking him in the face, gripping onto her knife so hard it hurts.

“I’m so sorry, Aries,” she says softly. Maybe so softly the cameras don’t pick up what she’s saying, and no one will ever know. “I’m honored to have known you. In this time.”

“No,” he says, grasping her free hand. “I’m the one who’s honored by you. No one’s ever going to forget you,” he tells her. The best warriors, she remembers Brutus saying, are the ones who are the most relentless fighters, but also who most loyally stay by their allies. It’s not just about having force, but how you use it. It’s what separates warriors from mutts created in labs. 

She raises the knife over his heart and lowers it to where she knows the right point is. The most merciful and quick way. His eyes are already closed when she does it.

“Do you want us to – to make the crumbs from the bread,” Minka says, stunned and shaking.

“No,” Enobaria says, clenching her jaw so she won’t sound the same, because her throat is thick and she has do this right. The world is watching her and they can’t see a tragic scene of a helpless boy being knifed by a crying little girl. Aries was a brave warrior and Enobaria, regardless of what happens, is not going to let the people of District Two down, and even if it doesn’t make it to broadcast, that will never change the fact that the pride her people have in each other cannot be extinguished by death, that dying means remembering someone.

She shuts Aries’ eyes and takes the knife out of his heart and she scatters the breadcrumbs on his body, and stands up and looks at him. He looks peaceful. “We should go now,” she tells the others. “Before anyone catches us again.” Padraig nods solemnly. Anahit gets up, and tells Minka quietly to come on.

_

Cannons in the night and pictures in the sky. Aries, District Two. Maple, District Seven.

_

“They have to bring out the mutts eventually,” Anahit had said a couple of days ago. Enobaria knew she was right, and it was only a matter of time, but she didn’t want to think about it. The mutts are always the most horrible part, and secretly, she wishes they weren’t in the Games. It almost doesn’t seem fair.

It begins when they hear a noise like a howl. “Wolves,” Enobaria says quietly. She tries to remember what she knew about wolves from a book she’d read about them as a child until she realizes mutts wouldn’t even be real wolves anyway.

“I think,” Minka says quietly, slowly getting up, “I think that’s a coyote.” Anahit’s mouth drops open and she snaps to look at the direction Minka was looking at, and only yards away, a pack of them waits.

“Run,” Padraig says, and Anahit says he doesn’t have to say it twice and then they’re all running forward. Minka keeps saying fuck, fuck, fuck, and Padraig keeps telling everyone to run, as if to drown out the howls of the mutts.

“There’s a boulder!” Enobaria cries out, pointing forward, not so far away. Granite, she thinks. It’s big enough that if they climb on it the mutts wouldn’t be able to get to them, and craggy enough that they can climb up away from the mutts in the first place. Padraig isn’t shouting anymore, he’s panting so hard Enobaria wonders if he’s out of breath, and when they reach the rock Minka seems to have gone into some kind of catatonic state.

“One of you,” Padraig says, “one of you climb on my shoulders and get up there.” Minka seems like she hasn’t even heard him and Anahit looks over at Enobaria.

“I’m taller than you. I’ll climb myself and you can let Padraig lift you. Hurry,” Anahit says, and Enobaria lets Padraig lift her up as Anahit hurls herself upwards and clings to the edge of the boulder and claws her way on top and then extends her hand so that Enobaria can reach up to her. And then, she can’t believe it, but she’s safely up on top, and the mutts are almost there.

“Minka! Come on!” Enobaria screams, and Padraig moves forward maybe to carry her or guide her to climb along with them, but then one of them jumps and mauls him before he can even do anything and he falls to the ground, his eyes wide open and his neck flowing red in waves, like what the sea must flow like. Dead almost immediately, she thinks. And Minka opens her mouth wide and gasps frantically like she’s just woken up from a bad dream and looks upwards, gesturing towards what was Padraig, and then they’re on her and the noise makes Enobaria want to throw up. And the cannons sound off, and it scares off the mutts who scatter like birds when a fast car goes by.

“We should stay up here to be safe,” Enobaria finds herself saying. The sun is setting, and when the two of them try to sleep, the cannons sound off, and she can hear Anahit crying.

Minka, District One. Padraig, District Four. Granger, District Nine.

“It’s almost over,” Enobaria whispers to her, and Anahit wraps her arms around her, and neither of them move, and it takes a long time for Enobaria to fall asleep and she doesn’t know if Anahit manages to at all.

_

In the morning they know what they have to do.

“It’s just us and the boy from Seven now,” Anahit says, staring at the surface of the boulder. Enobaria doesn’t say anything because her throat is so thick it aches and she’s afraid she’ll cry. Anahit bites her lip and closes her eyes.

“We have to split up,” Enobaria says after a long moment. “We can’t…” We can’t kill each other, she wants to say. But the world has them on camera and she can’t say that, not for her sake or Anahit’s sake or the sake of their families and friends and everyone in their districts. “We can’t let him win.” Because if they kill each other- if the strongest turn on each other, like that year when One and Two fought – then neither of them will live.

Enobaria looks up and Anahit’s eyes are glistening but nothing falls out. She is keeping her eyes so wide, so unblinking that it must be on purpose. “No matter what happens,” Anahit speaks like exhaling, “I’ll never forget you.”

“One of us is going to make it,” Enobaria says with certainty. She doesn’t even think to bring up what will happen if one of them takes down John, and they will be the only two left. She can already imagine how they would work it out. How they would find each other and agree to not just slaughter one another the way the final two so often do, but they’d duel, with respect to each other. Not a frenzied bloodbath. “And I’ll never forget either. In this life or the next.” She takes Anahit’s hand firmly and they press their foreheads together. And just as soon they separate, and jump off the boulder and run in different directions.

_

Hours later, Enobaria knows that there can’t be much more left to do. With only three tributes left the game makers will want to have their grand finale soon, and all of the Capitol will be anticipating it. She’s anticipating it too, although not particularly looking forward to it. She’s not looking forward to the possibility of dying, but if she’s made it this far – and she has a feeling no one thought she ever would – there’s a very real possibility she’ll win, which she’s barely considered, even though she also hasn’t been allowing herself to think in full about what it would mean for her to die.

It’s a matter of waiting now. The game makers will be doing a lot of the work to bring it all together. It’s out of her control, she realizes. It’s not really up to her, or Anahit, or John from Seven. And she wonders if that means they have an outcome they’d like to see, and they’re trying to kill off two to let one survive.

They don’t get to do that, she decides. Enobaria realizes if she’s going to die, and if it can’t be on her terms, it had better not be on anyone else’s, even if she dies by another’s hand. It should between her and whatever is out there in the universe that can bring her to the next life, to decide if anything that befalls her should be the thing that will end this life and begin the next one.

She is thinking about this when she hears the sound of metal hitting flesh.

_

It doesn’t take long for her to find where the noise is coming from because John keeps saying oh, oh, in horror, his axe dripping, and then falling from his violently shaking hands to the ground. Enobaria thinks it’s good fortune that there’s no tall grass around because if there was maybe she wouldn’t be able to see where it went, and then she sees Anahit, who isn’t dead- but clearly dying, and she realizes it’s much worse than if she had just died quickly.

John clearly must have been trying to behead her or at least land a fatal blow but he must have maneuvered wrong, or Anahit moved but not completely in time, or both, because the axe has cut her open in a horrific diagonal line from the top of her neck to the bottom of her shoulder. Like a botched execution in the very old times before the Dark Days when people used axes for capital punishment instead of firing squads, and sometimes it wasn’t a quick stroke, but many merciless strokes. Not even the Capitol doctors could help her now.

Anahit isn’t screaming, but Enobaria isn’t sure whether or not it’s because she can’t. She seems to be barely breathing, her mouth wide open in shock, and she turns her head to Enobaria, her eyes pleading. She can feel some kind of noise escaping her throat and she runs forward and takes the axe and John looks like he’s ready to die but she throws the axe as far as she can into the distance, like Brutus showed her in training, and it lands so far away that she knows John isn’t going to run for it. “I tried to make it quick,” he says as if he’s just realized he can speak. She believes him. But it doesn’t fix anything. And Anahit is still dying.

John isn’t armed. Maybe this will be quick, Enobaria thinks, and she walks over to Anahit and kneels beside her and takes her knife and puts it through her heart and keeps her hand on her chest while watching John, so he can’t take her by surprise, so she can feel her final heartbeat. And the cannons go off.

She gets up and is about to ask him how he wants to do it when something seems to shift in his eyes and he jumps at her, tackling her onto the ground, on top of her, the grasses scratching at her ears. He tries to grab the knife from her hand but before she can think of what she’s doing, she throws it backwards. Now we’re both unarmed, she thinks with a strange clarity. They’re going to get their show, all right, their grand finale. The horror she feels is reflected in John’s face over hers, his mouth gaping, his eyes wild, and his hands go to her throat. He presses around her and she coughs for breath and scratches at his face but it isn’t enough and she tries to move to throw him off her but she doesn’t really succeed, even if his grip is loosened, and for a moment they fight hands against hands, trying to grab one another’s wrists and pin them down, and John is screaming, not because she’s wounded him, he just is, and his face is so close to hers their noses are almost touching and she can’t hear anything but his screaming and for a moment she wonders if he’s broken something, and for a briefer wilder moment she wonders if they’re both dead but neither of them have noticed, and he’s almost embracing her and it has to end or they’ll be here in the grass trying to kill each other forever, until the game makers send a pack of coyotes to eat them both or a storm to blow them both away, and she thinks of the mercy and shock of a quick death, the bloodletting and the finality, and of district children dying on their own terms or each other’s but nobody else’s and she tastes warm, metallic, thick blood as she’s biting John right where his neck artery is, and tearing her head away from him as quick as she’s done it, and he’s going limp and she rolls out from underneath him and gets up and starts spitting out the taste of him and wiping her face with her sleeve, and looking over to Anahit, who at least died with something resembling a smile on her face, and the cannons are going off and she can hear _and the Victor of the Sixty-Second Hunger Games is Enobaria Hammersmith of District Two_ and it’s over and she closes her eyes and hopes that when she opens them she won’t see anything resembling prairies and tall grasses, and that everyone around her will be alive.

_ 

In the hovercraft she can see the arena below her but looks away to see what’s going on inside. “Where’s Brutus?” she asks someone with pink eyebrows who appears to be some kind of a doctor.

“You’ll see him soon,” the doctor says. “He’ll be waiting for you. We just have to make sure you’re all right.” She has no idea how to respond to that. “You did hear me, didn’t you?” he continues when she’s still silent. She nods numbly. “I ask because often tributes suffer hearing loss, but we didn’t think any factors in the arena would have led to that in your case. On the subject, congratulations, dear,” he says warmly. “You’re already a sensation,” he says, with some excitement in his voice. “The stylists are going to rip you from my arms the second we land. But don’t worry, you’ll get to recuperate for a few days.” She’s scratching at her chin because it itches like it’s coated in something and her fingernails have red-brown dried blood underneath them.

“Do you have any water,” she asks the doctor.

“Of course,” he says, and waves his hand at a nurse to get some for her. “Get used to that,” he says in good humor. “Drinks, food, clothes. Ask for it and it shall be yours!”

“Oh,” Enobaria responds, because it’s clear the doctor expects her to say things when he talks to her. The second she sees the nurse, whose hair and makeup are bright red and snow white to match her uniform, she reaches out her hands for the water and takes it quickly, drinking it all at once the way she’d once seen Poppaea at a summer party in the Victor’s Village drink a beer in less than a minute. The water washes some of John’s blood down her throat and she coughs and gags, pink water dripping out of her mouth and onto the white stretcher she’s sitting on.

“If you love the water this much I’m sure you’ll just love the refreshments at the parties that will be coming,” the nurse says, smiling at her. “And the feasts on your Victory Tour! I told my boyfriend, right from the start, there’s an eagerness to that girl,” clearly meaning her. “She might be the smallest Career girl you’ve ever seen, but I think that just gives her an extra push, I told him. And I was right!” the nurse confides in her like they’re friends gossiping at a sleepover party.

“Thank you,” Enobaria says stiffly, unsure of whether or not the nurse means to compliment her, but certain that from here on everything that happens she’s supposed to regard as a blessing to be eternally grateful to the Capitol for. Even if she’s survived not because of them but because of herself. The nurse gives her more water. “Do you have any toothbrushes or anything?” she asks.

“No, sorry,” the nurse says. The doctor is logging something into one of his technological devices. “But we’ll be landing soon enough and then you’ll be freshened up right away, you do have to be crowned by the President as Victor this weekend!” Enobaria doesn’t even know what day it is. “Oh, I’m sure they’ll make you look beautiful,” the nurse sighs.

“But my mentor-” the nurse doesn’t even wait for her to finish.

“Of course, of course,” the nurse says. “Your mentor is probably very excited to see you! You know,” she says before Enobaria can consider how strange it would be to see Brutus act ‘very excited,’ “it’s always interesting to see what you say when you come up. After you win.” Enobaria doesn’t think she has anything to say to that, or anything the nurse can possibly say, or the doctor, or maybe anyone. They can’t understand, she thinks; no matter what I say, they never will. 

_

Brutus is right there waiting when the hovercraft lands. “Brutus,” she says quietly, more quietly than she intended, and he grabs her hand and raises their arms together, victory for Two, and she shoots him a look, tilting her head toward the building and he nods just enough so she can see and walks them in quickly, out of the sight of cameras.

She takes a quick breath in and almost collapses, and puts her hands on her knees and leans up against the wall. Brutus gazes coldly at the stylists waiting inside and they scurry away before he says anything else. She wonders if people will be afraid of her like that too, and realizes she hasn’t said anything, and Brutus is just watching her breathe heavily. “I know,” he says, after a long silence, putting his hand on her shoulder, and she can hear herself crying, “I know, kid,” he says drawing her into an embrace. “Just remember. You made it. And if you can make it through that you can make it through every day after.”

“Did you see-” she starts to ask before realizing she doesn’t know what she would even ask about first- how she won, or what happened with Aries, or anything else.

“I watched it all,” he says, reassuringly, although she isn’t sure if that comforts her or not. Or if it should, if anything ever should again. “You should know that your games- that’s what they’ll be calling this one, your games – are a big hit. Maybe the biggest in years. That’s going to mean you’re a big name in the Capitol.” Not like Sabina or Poppaea, she thinks, who seem to have a lower profile. She’s never really imagined what being famous may be like.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing,” she asks him, realizing that what a good thing or a bad thing is defined by Capitol people, with their strange and over-the-top ways, may be very different from what she or Brutus, who are at home in Two, district people no matter how many times someone calls them Victor, would define as good or bad. 

Brutus lowers his head for a moment. “You survived,” he tells her. “No matter what they do, no matter what they ask of you or take from you. And- and somewhere along the line they always expect things from their Victors,” he says, “no matter what, you’re a survivor. You always will be until the day you die. Nobody can take that from you.”

So, fame is not such a good thing, she concludes.

Enobaria nods her head, and rubs at her eyes. “I feel like I should be happy,” she confesses, “but I don’t know what I feel.”

“There are going to be a lot of days like that,” Brutus says. “But don’t let anyone tell you what you should feel. And there’s something else you should know,” he lowers his voice. She looks up, questioningly.

“The Capitol only gave your district- and some other districts- one mentor this year. It was an experiment they were trying out. They thought you could never win, so they didn’t want to, as they put it, waste money on tributes who they believed wouldn’t last long. So they told me to mentor both you and Aries, because they thought you didn’t deserve someone solely training you. But I thought you both deserved a fair chance. And I did my best to give you that,” he says.

Enobaria exhales shakily, not knowing where to begin. “And I know you did your best for Aries,” he told her. “I can tell you his family appreciates it greatly. All of District Two does.” And from the way he’s saying it, she feels like no one else in the country cared or even noticed, and maybe even less people understand.

“They’re going to be waiting for you later. Your stylists, I mean,” Brutus says after a moment. “Are you good to go back to your room now? You need rest.”

“I guess,” Enobaria says. “Will you be at the parties and all that?” She doesn’t really have much interest in going. It’s not as though she’ll know anyone else there. Her family can’t be there, and it will be all Capitol people. And all of the other tributes are dead, and she’ll never be able to go anywhere with any of them.

“Yes, actually,” Brutus says. “Not really my scene, but of course I’ll be there for you. And anyway,” he says, “you’re a Victor now. One of us,” he says with a slight smile. “Soon enough you’ll be a mentor too. But first, welcome to the club. We’re supposed to make appearances because we’re _celebrities_ ,” she almost laughs at the sardonic way he says it, and maybe he’s trying to make her laugh, to take her mind off of it, “but really, it’s good to be with one another. Even when _they’re_ not watching. It’s what keeps us sane. Relatively,” and then he smiles for real, and she does too, because maybe someone else will understand the parts of her that even she doesn’t know if she does yet.

_

Before the stylists can do a makeup job on her face that would use enough paint to cover a billboard, she asks to brush and floss her teeth, and wash out her mouth, herself. A firm emphasis on herself, and even though they’re the stylists, they see the victor’s steel in her eyes and the stains on her gums and are, she supposes, startled enough into letting the little district girl control at least one facet of her body, they trust her at least to do it just once, she supposes. She wonders if she can fire the stylists now that she won.

In the bathroom she brushes her teeth so many times over she loses count, until the mint of the toothpaste coats her throat and she can taste it no matter how many times she rinses out her mouth with cold sink water, rinses and gargles and spits it all down the drain. And then she flosses again and again between her teeth until she’s sure nothing is in there, and then until the blood on the white floss is her own. She washes out her mouth again until there is no more blood, nothing but the feeling of ice-cold water and the vague taste of mint.

“I’m ready,” she says at the stylists, not looking at any of them in particular, and they rush forward like tributes to the Cornucopia.

_

The dress is a short red leather number with a corset bodice, and tall shining black boots, and glittering red eye makeup and black lip gloss that is almost reflective. Golden body glitter all down her limbs and chest. Enobaria barely recognizes herself. “Gorgeous!” the stylists say when they see their work. “You’ll be the talk of the Capitol for sure! Oh, all the photographers will be fighting each other to get the best shots of you. Keep your head up! The look only works if you own it. This is the look of a confident, fierce victor. A destroyer, a conqueror. Fearsome- but beautiful and alluring. The designers will all be fighting to have you as a model,” they’re saying. “You’re an icon already.”

“Wow,” she says, thinking she’ll have to say something. “Thank you so much.” In the mirrors surrounding her, she doesn’t think she looks her age. Fifteen. It was her birthday in the arena and she forgot, she realizes, none of the others even knew. Her teeth look shockingly white against her lip gloss, and maybe, she thinks, she did a good enough job cleaning. The outfit really isn’t to her taste- the more she looks at it the more it looks like lingerie- but she supposes, it’s just one ceremony, and anyway, the body glitter, she doesn’t mind, she’s always liked how gold has looked against her brown skin. Under different circumstances, maybe buying drugstore makeup with Acte, this might even be fun. But it’s just imposing, and kind of stressful. Especially because she has a feeling this ceremony won’t be the end of it, and then there’s the Victory tour, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to go to every district, even to Two. She doesn’t know what she’s going to say, how she can ever find the words to talk to everyone at home when it’s going to be broadcast all over the country and scrutinized by the President. Be careful what you say, had been one of the first things she’d been warned when she arrived at the Capitol. She’s just a fifteen year old girl, she thinks, what can they possibly be worried about from her? But there are always going to be rules, she supposes. And very often there’s just nothing else to do but to follow them.

_

Her knees are locked as she stands on the platform, straight as an arrow, her arms at her sides like they’re stuck. She looks straight ahead at nothing, until the President walks to her and places the circlet on her head. “Congratulations to you, Enobaria Hammersmith,” he says with a warmth that does not feel genuine. She nods her head like she’s one of his soldiers. And he thought she had no chance, that she didn’t even deserve to be given one. She wonders if he sees her differently now.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” she tells him. The crowd is roaring and the photographers and reporters are shouting things but they’re all talking at once so she can’t make out the individual questions or demands. On large screens in the air, her image is projected, and she tries her hardest to not move a muscle in her face. They’re not going to go around trying to figure her out before she’s even done figuring out everything going on inside of her.

Whistles and cheers and applause. The national anthem. What are you thinking? She wonders about the massive, screaming Capitol audience. What can anyone be thinking? They have to have come to some kind of conclusion, or conclusions, about her. It’s inevitable.

Enobaria decides it is her mission to find that out as soon as possible.

_

“Congratulations,” a man with shining silver – not silver as in old age, but silver as in dyed to look like the metal – hair tells her. “I was betting on you. I am so proud, to have predicted you would win, and that you would be the Games’ youngest Victor in all its history!”

“Wait- I am?” she asks, thinking it over. Surely there had to have been fifteen year old winners before. But maybe not ones that only turned fifteen in the arena and were fourteen when they went in. Well, thinks Enobaria – they were wrong about me; I’m a survivor. “Thank you,” she adds dutifully.

“You’re so polite!” he adds as if it is a surprise. Like he expected her to rip his throat out too. From what she’s heard from the people she’s met at this party- and from the people she’s overheard as well- that was their main takeaway from the Games. As if she’d planned it all out to be like that.

She can feel their eyes on her. At first, when she walked in, she thought it must have been what she was wearing, a glittery bronze bustier with a skirt that has slits up to her thighs, and high-heeled strappy sandals. And she is getting complimented on the outfit, and photographed as well, and told all about how ferociously magnificent she looked at the ceremony earlier. But that’s not just it.

Caesar Flickerman is there, with sapphire-colored hair and eyebrows and a turquoise suit. “Look at you! The Victor!” he calls out even though he’s right in front of her, and kisses her on both cheeks before she can even react. “Dear, I cannot wait to feature you on my program. The ratings will be like nothing I’ve ever had. Did you know your Games were the highest-watched in decades?”

She shakes her head no, not wanting to say anything lest he ends up broadcasting it to the world. “Well,” he says, “we’ll have to get our picture for the papers, won’t we?” he winks at her, and she sees that there are photographers behind him. He smiles widely, and she smiles with her mouth closed, not feeling the elation that is radiating from him even though he seems to think she’s sharing it. “I just love her!” he says to the photographers, and turns to her. “If looks could kill- you would be literally slaying all your competitors, and not just blatantly outshining them,” he says.

Enobaria laughs, albeit nervously- he’s probably expecting her to. She supposes he doesn’t think she’s a little kid anymore. Probably none of them do. Maybe if she hadn’t thrown away her knife and had just stuck it in John, it would be different, and people wouldn’t be talking about her as much, let alone talking about her in the way that they are. But maybe not, and she’ll never really know, because what happened is she bit his throat open, and that’s always going to be what happened, and that’s what everyone is thinking when they look at her, even as they’re thinking about her clothes and makeup and how she looks.

Flickerman leaves her alone eventually, and everyone keeps offering her food or asking if she’s tried anything yet, and she keeps saying she’s not hungry, but they keep asking it and it makes her so annoyed she wants to snap at them. But she knows she can’t. Not because they would get her in trouble, but because it would help them to paint their narrative of who she is. So she leaves the room with all the food when one of the game makers is distracting everyone with a story about how he came up with the idea for the tornadoes, because the sight of the food and the smell of it is turning her stomach and she couldn’t stand to be there even before she realized what the game maker was talking about. Outside in a hallway, she sees Brutus. “There you are!” she says, and feels relieved, if not happy.

He almost looks surprised when he sees her- maybe it’s how they’re dressing her. “I was wondering where you were,” he says.

“I want to ask you something,” she says and then realizes Brutus has some people nearby him, among the crowd of people in the hallway, where apparently the bar is located. She should probably say hello to them soon.

“Anything,” he tells her.

“Can I fire my stylists? And do I even have to have any? I don’t like having them around. I think I just want to choose my own clothes,” she says to him.

He pauses for a moment. “Well, I’ve never heard of a Victor asking for that before, but I don’t see why not,” he answers. “On the topic of Victors. I’d like to introduce you all to each other. You,” he says to the other people, “already know Enobaria, but I don’t think any of you have met her, or that she’s met you.” Enobaria shakes her head no.

“Hello everyone,” she says, “it’s an honor to be among you.” She recognizes them as mostly Victors from District Two, most familiar is the tall blonde woman, Lyme Silvers. Lyme is probably one of the most famous Victors from District Two, now that Enobaria thinks about it, though she’s never met her before. She wonders where Sabina is- but Poppaea, she thinks, is less of a mystery. Probably down at one of the bars or something. Some of the Victors she also recognizes as being from Districts One and Four.

“Enobaria!” someone shouts and she turns to see who it is, if it’s maybe another Victor, another possible friend. She trusts Brutus, but she’s not sure if there’s anyone else she can trust. Even the people standing by her introducing themselves. She sees a woman she’s never seen before, wearing a striped dress and a knee-length wig, holding a microphone while a camera crew follows her. “We are live from the celebration of our newest Victor. Who are you wearing, Enobaria?” she asks.

Enobaria makes herself smile for the camera, and give them the kind of answer they must be expecting.

_

At one of the afterparties she’s supposed to stick around for (how many can there be? Do these people just sleep all day?), she feels a tap on the shoulder, and when she turns there’s an older man with slick gold hair and a mustache that doesn’t look real. He extends his hand to her. “Septimus Worthington,” he introduces himself, “owner of the Pearl Building.” Enobaria vaguely recognizes the name as one of the biggest skyscrapers in the Capitol.

“Nice to meet you,” she says uneasily, “I’m Enobaria-” he laughs as if she’s said something particularly endearing.

“Oh, of course you are,” he says. Right, she thinks, who in the Capitol doesn’t know. She wonders if these Capitol people think she’s stupid for introducing herself now. Look at the provincial district child, all dressed up but still nothing but a little mountain girl from the middle of nowhere. He raises his eyebrows. “I’ll be your…patron for tonight.”

“What do you mean?” Enobaria asks. He still hasn’t let go of her hand, and if this wasn’t the Capitol, she would have asked who he thinks he is to be holding her hand like that when they don’t even know each other and she didn’t say it was all right.

He looks almost surprised. “Well, a beautiful Victor like yourself has certain…tasks after victory in the Capitol. Surely you know this?” She doesn’t answer because she still has no idea what he’s talking about. “Oh well. I’m sure you’ll be marvelous,” and he smiles and there’s something sick in his face, something flashing in his eyes like emergency lights. He is leading her by the hand and she wants to push him away or call for Brutus but she knows this is the order of the Capitol and she cannot afford to defy them. Not when defiance means death for the families of Victors.

By the time he leads her into his hotel room, she knows exactly what he meant. That this will not be the last time, not even close. She doesn’t know how long he’s in there, but she doesn’t listen to a single thing he says. She screams into her pillow so that no one can hear her but herself, until her throat is raw and sore like she hasn’t had water in days, and she hears her silenced scream echoed in her ears long after the party is over, long after she’s out of the room.

Now, she thinks, for the first time, she truly understands what it is to hate. In her own room, with a view of the Capitol outside the window and forcefields outside preventing anyone from jumping to their deaths, she puts her head between her knees and cries until she’s too tired to do anything but lie down as the sunrise spreads over the horizon like a bleeding wound.

_

Someone’s knocking on her door. She puts on one of the emblazoned bathrobes that thankfully cover her from throat to ankle, and makes sure her face is clean, and looks through the eyehole on the door to see who it is before she says anything, before the person on the other side can even know she’s there. But it’s Brutus, so she opens the door and gestures for him to come in.

He takes one look at her and closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “Tell me they didn’t,” he says. “Tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.” She nods.

“I thought they would at least hold off until you were older and I could have warned you,” he tells her. “I really did. Those motherfuckers-” he’s gripping the door so hard she wonders if it might come off the hinge.

“Did it happen to you too?” she asks after a long silence. He nods, and shrugs.

“Most of us,” he says, “at least, at first.”

Enobaria looks Brutus in the eyes. “I hate them,” she says, with such conviction she’d feel confident enough saying it again, and again, she realizes. “I _hate_ them,” and when she breathes out the words it feels like fire coming out of her mouth. Can you hear me, Mr. President? She wonders. I’m not saying no, I’m not dooming my family, I’ll do what I have to, just know that I hate every last person you will send my way.

Brutus closes his eyes. “I know,” he says, lowering his voice. “They will all face justice in the next life.”

“They deserve it in this life too,” she says, knowing it will never happen, and that means maybe in this life no one gets justice.

“They do,” Brutus says, sounding almost defeated. “I’m so sorry, kid. I wanted a lot better for you.” She believes him, but also, she supposes, it was this or dying. The only better she would have gotten would have happened if some other girl had been reaped, and then she would be going through all this too, maybe she would have even died. Someone would be in her place. These people would still be doing it. And then maybe in one of her few remaining years of eligibility, Enobaria still would have been reaped anyway, and had a similar, if not the same, fate in the arena and after. It never ends, and it never will, as long as it exists, she thinks.

She allows him to hold her in his arms when she breaks down.

_

On one hand, Brutus is coming for the Victory Tour. On the other hand, Helvius is too. Enobaria supposes she doesn’t really hate him- she wouldn’t want to waste her hatred on someone so stupid- but she doesn’t want him following her around such a personal time. Except the Victory Tour isn’t supposed to be personal at all.

She gets to see her family again, Enobaria realizes. She didn’t think she would. She hopes her parents don’t see her differently now, the way the Capitol people see her. “Enobaria: The Girl of Your Wildest Dreams and Worst Nightmares,” one magazine headline reads. “The Tigress of Two.” The stylists, at least, are gone. The wardrobe that had initially been provided for her in the train to the Capitol all hers now that she’s won, and she can make use of it however she likes, which is what she’s expected to do unless she uses some of her winnings to buy new clothes. It’s not as if she can do her whole Victory Tour wearing her old clothes from the arena. She can’t bring herself to get rid of them but she never wants to wear them again. She can’t even look at them sometimes.

The thing is, now that she has the access to such an extensive and elaborate wardrobe, she enjoys going through it, spending hours putting together outfits that look good and that she’d actually want to wear. Victors are supposed to have special talents they work on after their victories – Brutus’ is hiking. If Enobaria can be her own stylist, maybe that can be the basis for her talent, something in clothing. Something that isn’t about her _ferocity_ or _viciousness_ , something that won’t keep her from sleeping and eating. (“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Helvius keeps asking every time there’s a feast or some appetizers or a buffet or anything, and she takes a plate, but she can’t tell him that she just doesn’t want to eat and only does when she knows she has to, and can’t stand to do it in front of other people. And afterwards, she has to spend at least fifteen minutes cleaning her teeth or else she feels sick. He wouldn’t get it, even though she can’t understand how he doesn’t.)

_

They even broadcast her reunion with her family, who, when she last saw them, was mentally preparing themselves for the fact that they may have had to see her die on television and she would never come home, even if they wouldn’t allow themselves to say that to her. Of course they had to know it was a possibility. But she knows that they must have wanted to comfort her, encourage her, leave her inspired to come back rather than too despondent and homesick to be able to focus on surviving.

“Well, we are broadcasting live from District Two, where our latest Victor Enobaria Hammersmith is welcomed back by her parents, Quartz and Etelka,” a purple-haired reporter practically shouts when Enobaria gets off the train.

“Ma! Dad!” she can’t help but call out, as soon as she sees them, overcome as she runs toward them.

She puts her face in their shoulders, between them, feeling some kind of peace, some sort of remnant of childhood, and some kind of satisfaction that at least for the moment the camera can’t be observing her face. Not even the cameras can ruin this one good thing. 

“You’re home, you’re home,” her father keeps whispering to her. “We love you so much, Enobaria,” her mother says, and she can’t say anything back, not now while people are watching. Anything she has to say to her family belongs to them. Not the rest of the world. But for as long as she can before the reporters begin expecting more, she lets her family hold her, like she’s just a normal girl. 

_

She passes by Sabina in the streets, and they stare at each other wordlessly, Sabina’s old, old eyes filling up with tears, her jaw set hard and stiff. “I’m so sorry, Eno,” Sabina tells her, using the nickname she would call her so many years ago in childhood, and then Sabina just walks away down the street without another word.

_

In District Seven, before she’s about to go up before the people, a boy around her age with dark hair comes up to her weeping, and before she can say anything he starts talking. The resemblance is plain enough- he must be John’s brother, she realizes, and she blankly wonders if he’s going to attack her. She stands her ground. The air smells like pine, and it almost reminds her of the base of the mountain, back home. “I forgive you,” he says. “I forgive you.” He puts his hands over his face and then extends them to her. “I know- I know he didn’t mean to hurt the girl like that. He wouldn’t have - and I know you were just- doing what he was doing. There was no choice.”

She lowers her head. “Be careful who hears you,” she tells him, not unkindly, she doesn’t think, because she isn’t sure if what he’s saying would be considered acceptable. She isn’t about to go running around telling everyone what he said, or even that it happened. If he wants this meeting to be a secret, she’s fine with that.

She nods at him, his hands still in hers, and she grips his hands tight for a moment. “I know,” he says. “I just needed to see you. You were the last one who ever…”

“You must have been a very good brother,” is all she can think to say. Enobaria never had any brothers or sisters. But she understands family. And she has a feeling that even if her parents haven’t cried to her or talked about forgiving her, that her family will never be the same again, either, and the difficulty of that will never really go away, even if, as Brutus tells her, it all becomes more a part of everyday life and what it was like before just fades away.

But I don’t want to forget, she had told Brutus. He had reassured her that he didn’t really mean forget. And for once, she had truly felt reassured.

The boy runs off and she can hear Helvius calling to her from nearby. She wonders if it will ever stop feeling like everything she’s doing is being watched. Maybe not, given that everything she’s doing may as well be.

_

In district Four, just like all the other districts, when Enobaria appears to the crowd, there are two screens projected onto the buildings facing her. On platforms, two families in front of two faces. She says, looking to the cards- as Brutus and Helvius came up with cards for her to read from together, and under any other circumstances the idea of them having to work together would be funny – it was an honor to fight alongside the tributes of Four. But then she looks back up, because she knows what the cards say anyway, and the Victors are never supposed to say too much. Brutus ran it over with her- don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in front of President Snow. But then, she doesn’t think she has much to say to him anyway.

But she says what she can about Anahit and Padraig, as Victors are supposed to say to their fallen allies. She says what she can- she couldn’t not, no matter how it feels.

She looks at the space in between the two screens, the cracked and potholed street between the buildings, a space forever separating Padraig and Anahit, their images projected into the air like transparent ghosts.

Helvius, on the train, offers some sea-salt chocolates from some gift shop in Four’s town center. “I know you and Ar– you enjoyed these,” he says to her gently. She supposes he’s trying, and that it’s clear she doesn’t seem like the picture of a happy Victor once the cameras go away.

Her stomach is empty and she supposes it would taste great. But she can’t. “Thanks,” she tells Helvius, and takes the small box, but she doesn’t open it, and when she gets back to her room on the train, she throws it in the wastebasket and sits on her bed, looking out the window, wondering how many Two girls have looked out this window before and how many of them lived and how many of them walked by the room of their dead district partner again and again throughout their entire Victory Tour, as if they had been forgotten by the whole world. And, she’s beginning to wonder, if being forgotten can’t sometimes be a lesser evil than the alternatives.

_

For the next Games, she’s in the Capitol, because Victors often come around or are summoned even when they’re not mentors. Enobaria isn’t a mentor yet- the game makers never really like the idea of mentors who are still of Reaping age – but soon she’ll be old enough, and so she’s supposed to be around, like some of the other younger Victors, to get a sense of what the training process is from the mentor’s perspective. Brutus runs over lesson plans with her, and it’s not so difficult to understand. But it’s very, very rare that any district has consecutive wins.

That was the first thing Brutus told her when she asked what his ideas were for the tributes. “Enobaria,” he says, “when you’re a mentor, it’s going to happen every year. Even if one of them wins, the other dies. You can’t spend energy blaming yourself. But…it doesn’t feel good. Not to any of us.” She wonders if this is the real training for being a mentor- not how to turn your tributes into Victors, but how to get through the process of coming back here every single year forever, how to survive this, too, when your tributes can’t, so you don’t end up like Poppaea, or Haymitch Abernathy, or that guy and girl from Six who are always shooting morphling together even in sight of the tributes because they’ve just given up, not on their tributes’ lives, but on their own.

Enobaria doesn’t think she’ll ever end up like that. But she understands why some people do. She’s been through what they have. She has no choice but to understand.

The winner that year is a strong blonde boy from District One. His name is Gloss Lejeune and they parade him around in a gold suit and a shining white silk tie. “What a handsome young man,” everyone on the news says, and she supposes they’re right, although she doesn’t personally feel that way about him. Not that there’s anything wrong with him. She just realizes by now she doesn’t really like guys, not like that. Although the rumors are that he doesn’t like girls like that, either. For someone who’s as deadly with daggers as he is, he seems nice enough. Sometimes the Capitol audiences laugh when he says something that isn’t grammatically correct, or some District One expression they think is quaint, but Enobaria thinks that just means the part of him that’s still him hasn’t been replaced by the Capitol. At least not yet. Good for him.

She wishes, for his sake, they didn’t think he was handsome. It would be better for him if they didn’t like how he looked.

During his Victory Tour, part of the ceremony is that when he’s in her district- as is the custom in Two when they’re the previously victorious district hosting the newly victorious district- his feast is held at her house in the Victor’s Village. When the dinner part is over and it’s mostly a house party, they go outside to take a walk around the neighborhood, Victor and Victor. (Enobaria was thankful for all the attention on Gloss no one noticed how she put most of her dinner under the table for Titan, Brutus’ dog, to eat.)

“You know,” Gloss says to her- they’ve been talking about standard in-public Victor topics, and are acquainted by now – “I think you’d really like my little sister a whole lot. Cashmere.” He smiles fondly, “she’s your age.” Little, but my age? Enobaria smiles. In that respect he almost reminds her of Sabina, before she came back and was replaced by a storm cloud that never seemed to let down any rain or lightning, just was forever gray. “When we watched your Games, me and my family did, she predicted it’d be you. Right from the start.” His words aren’t Capitol-like flattery, but genuine, from the sound of how he’s talking. She’s heard he’s been getting speech lessons in the Capitol so he can sound more acceptable to their audiences, given that he doesn’t exactly talk as properly as they’d like.

“She has interesting taste,” Enobaria says, smiling, and Gloss laughs, long and loud. He’s a very good-looking guy, the news keeps praising him for his strength and looks and charm and humbleness. They are going to hurt him and never stop, she wants to say, but there’s no way to say it she can think of that doesn’t sound cruel, and she doesn’t want to be hurtful. “Just be careful,” she tells him, lowering her voice a little.

“How you mean?” he says, sounding a bit concerned, but still smiling at her.

“You made it out. Now’s the hard part,” she says, her voice coming out more bitter than she had anticipated. “The Capitol says they like you a lot, sure. But that just means they’re watching you. And your family,” she adds. “So you have to do what they ask of you and make sure nothing you or your family does or says can even be somewhat taken as stepping out of line.”

“That should be easy enough, I guess,” he says, “I’d never want nothing to happen to my family. And so far all they’ve really asked me to do is just go on stage and let them dress me up in weird costumes and appear on television and stuff.”

“They’ll never be taking their eyes off you and your family, though,” Enobaria says. “And you’re going to have to be a mentor soon. When you’re old enough. And no matter how many times you get a Victor, you always have to see the other one die.” He’s silent at that.

“I can imagine that’s real difficult,” he says to her, but not before looking both ways first as if he’s crossing the street. “I always felt bad for Haymitch Abernathy when I saw him on television. Nobody drinks like that unless they got something real bad going on.”

“Yeah,” she says wearily, thinking of Poppaea being dragged out of bars screaming and cursing at long-gone mutts and kids who died years ago. “That’s right.” They walk in silence for a few more moments. “I should warn you,” she says. He looks at her silently, his eyes widening.

“They hurt me,” she says, her voice sounding like it’s coming from very far away. “Not in the arena. After. They…make me do things sometimes. You know what kinds of things I mean. And I think they’re going to do it to you, too, if it hasn’t happened already. And I’m sorry. But there is absolutely fucking nothing we can do about it and I hate it,” she says, “I hate it, I hate it so much, Gloss,” she whispers. She shuts her eyes tight to calm herself down and tells herself when she opens them she’ll be home, just within sighting range of her house. But it’s not her childhood home at the base of the mountain where she could watch it snow from every window and she could see deer walk behind her house. It’s her home in the Victor’s Village, behind iron gates like something no one is supposed to go into. 

He’s embracing her then. She hadn’t expected that. “Hey,” he says, “I’m on your side. We’re Career Victors both of us now. So we’re a team. You’re not alone and neither am I,” he tells her. “We’re not going to be hurting alone.”

She thinks of what Brutus would probably say. That doesn’t make it stop hurting, maybe. But she doesn’t have to be alone as long as Brutus is with her, and that isn’t something she’d overlook or discount, and she thinks that maybe, having her on his side gave him some hope too. Victors almost never have children, she knows. But every time Brutus refers to her as “his kid,” even if mentors talk about their tributes and Victors that way all the time, he seems proud.

But sometimes we are alone, Enobaria doesn’t tell him. That’s why we both made it out of the arena. Because part of us both knew that survival is something you can only do for yourself and no one else can do for you.

“You’re a hero in One,” he tells her, probably trying to make her happier.

“Seriously?” she asks. During her Victory Tour, she had forced herself to do the necessary things, but hadn’t really gone around into the different districts. Two is all she knows. Except for now the Capitol, but that doesn’t count. She doesn’t let it count.

“Oh yeah,” he tells her. “No one is gonna forget how respectful you were of the others. Like you weren’t just running around screaming like some of these other Games where the whole thing may as well be a bloodbath.” They’re all bloodbaths, she thinks, you’re a Victor, don’t you know that? “I keep hearing people here talk about honor, District Two honor. And that’s it. That was you.”

All the Capitol ever talks about is how she ripped out John’s throat with her teeth. To be fair, she thinks about that just as much as she thinks about Duke’s dying screams and the sound of the mutts and her knife in Aries’ heart and the horrific sight of Anahit being butchered. Enobaria nods her head.

“Well,” she says, “people here like you a lot too. Just…remember what I said. Be careful what you say and where you say it. And just remember, no matter what. None of these people in the Capitol know you. No matter what they say, no matter what they do to you.” She swallows, her throat thick. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and screams into her pillow, like that horrible night of the after-party in the Capitol, just screams until she can’t anymore.

He nods. “All right,” he says.

“But,” she says, “Victors. People like you and me. That’s where you find people who can understand.” He puts his arm around her shoulder as they turn around and walk back to the house party. The closer they get the louder the music is.

“Oh. That stupid song,” Enobaria smiles crookedly, “well, maybe by the time we get back it will be over. Anyway, we should hurry up, I think you should meet my parents.”

“That would be great,” Gloss says. “You want to race back?” he smiles devilishly.

Enobaria laughs. “Maybe another time,” she says. They’re Victors. They’re going to be in each other’s lives for as long as they live. It’s a good thing, then, that they get along.

_

The next year when Enobaria watches the Reaping, a familiar-looking blonde girl from District One steps forward to volunteer, even before the Capitol announcer says anything. She has a hand on her hip and a battered looking denim dress with rhinestones and Enobaria isn’t even surprised when the girl says her name is Cashmere Lejeune.

“Are you worried for your sister?” a Capitol reporter asks Gloss, who’s going to mentor his sister now that he’s technically too old for Reaping. The reporter, Enobaria thinks, is enjoying the question too much and she shakes her head at the television.

Gloss raises his head proudly. “My sister is the best with knives as anyone in One I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I believe in her. And not only that, I’ve known her my whole life, so I know what I’m talking about when I say that if I could win, then she’ll have no problem.” The reporter laughs insipidly.

On the night of the interviews, Cashmere looks so young, even though, as Gloss says, she is Enobaria’s age. Maybe Enobaria is young still and she just forgot how to be. The rose-colored dress they put Cashmere in is made of tulle, with an impossibly low neckline and visible lingerie beneath the dress. Enobaria’s nails dig into her palm and again, she feels hatred, the same hatred she feels every fucking time she has to do something for a “patron,” go into a room or have photos taken or be filmed.

“So, Cashmere,” Flickerman says on the television, his hair a sort of salmon color. “Your brother was last year’s Victor. Was your volunteering influenced by that?” He raises his dyed eyebrows suggestively. “Is there a sibling rivalry?”

Cashmere throws back her head and laughs, a sound like crashing and banging, her long hair shaking. “That really wasn’t my motivation. I really don’t see Gloss as competition,” she says, and the audience laughs, choosing to interpret that a certain way. But her face grows more serious, her eyes narrowed, her head straight ahead. “But really,” she said, “I volunteered because I think I would have been Reaped anyway. I thought to myself, why not? I’m there either way. Because what I mean is, in our neighborhood, most people of age including Gloss and me, we’ve been taking the tesserae since we could. My name is in there a lot of times. A lot,” she repeats for emphasis. “There was a good enough chance that they were going to say my name that I just thought to myself, I’ll go for it. That way I won’t be afraid of getting called, and I’ll be ready. I felt drawn to it.” The crowd loves that, and the cheering and roaring takes a while before Flickerman can get his audience to settle down.

“And do you feel ready?” he asks.

She nods her head. “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Cashmere says. Now, Enobaria thinks, there’s a tribute who understands- she doesn’t know, not really, until she’s there. Enobaria wants her to survive, for her own sake, and for Gloss too. But nothing like that has ever happened before, and because of how unprecedented it is, Enobaria can’t help but wondering if the game makers will just have a falling rock hit Cashmere’s head and take her out so District One doesn’t think higher of itself than of the Capitol.

“Let everyone see your dress! It’s such a gorgeous color on you,” Flickerman says, and Cashmere stands up, straight and quick like she’s being called to fight. The camera closes in on her the way there were shots of Enobaria in her coronation ceremony dress, and she turns off the television. 

_

These Games are long.

Cashmere is the last Career standing, after two weeks. When she takes off her shirt so she can bathe her surface-level stomach wounds in a pond, the parachutes fly down, and her face does not betray any emotion. After another week and a half, when she puts her knife in the last tribute left to content with, the boy from Six, she does look downcast, even as they call her the Victor. Downcast, but determined. Cashmere tilts back her head and inhales the fogged, cool air, and the hovercraft comes down to get her.

For the entirety of the Games, Gloss barely leaves the sight of any screen, unable to tear himself away even when his sister isn’t being broadcasted. But now that she’s the Victor and she’s survived, Enobaria wonders if Gloss will feel any less helpless when he finds his sister just as much at the mercy of the Capitol as both of them are.

_

Despite how unprecedented a brother and sister winning two years in a row is, or maybe actually because of this, the Capitol is enamored with Cashmere just as they were with Gloss, and Enobaria before him, and that is just another kind of problem. The Capitol does not love any of its Victors, not truly, at least, not the way love should be. Her parents always told her growing up that if someone loves you they will never do anything on purpose to hurt you. By that logic, the Capitol fucking hates her. Her and every other one since the first. She’s pretty sure they really, truly do. They know they must have a Victor of the Games to keep the districts compliant enough, but every year they hate the Victor for surviving, and their hate is shown in their actions after, and in the fact that they sent every Victor in to kill and be killed in the first place. And nothing any Victor can give the Capitol is ever enough.

Cashmere probably already has an idea of this through her brother. Gloss tries to never let anyone see he’s in pain even when he is. Even when he went into the training center to mentor his sister the night after one of the “patrons” gave him a swollen eye and bruises around his neck like a choker necklace, and he had to claim he and Brutus just got too into it when they were practicing techniques together. He laughed as he told Cashmere and the boy from One. Cashmere hadn’t laughed at all.

Enobaria wonders how much she knows, how much she knew before she volunteered.

_

“I’ll say,” Cashmere tells Enobaria, as they take a walk around the District Two Victor’s Village, on the streets rather inside the houses where surely every room is recorded, because Snow must be so paranoid that even Enobaria’s parents talking about which trail they’d like to hike on the weekend is something he must know all about, “my new house is nice. But I miss my old place a lot. Do you ever feel like that?” she asks.

Cashmere and Gloss had grown up in a trailer park with their parents on the southern outskirts of One. In their neighborhood, nobody was well-off. Her father Topaz had been severely wounded while working at the shoe factory and by the time he was better, the Capitol-centered factory owner and businessman had decided to move the factory to Ten, where real estate was less expensive. Her mother Hennessey worked as a restaurant hostess. Neither Cashmere nor Gloss had grown up as wealthy as their names may have suggested, but they grew up in a family with a lot of love, a community with many friends and good memories. Maybe that was because so many memories were from before they were of Reaping age, but Enobaria doesn’t say that. Flickerman had broadcasted Mr. and Mrs. Lejeune’s stunned reaction to seeing their new house in the Victor’s Village for the first time. He hadn’t broadcasted when Hennessey had asked if they were still allowed to keep their trailer and their possessions inside of it.

“Honestly?” Enobaria looks at Cashmere. “I really do. Things were … different then. Maybe I miss my old house because I miss the time before,” she says, not knowing if one caused the other, realizing both probably happened at once. “It was in a really nice place,” she says, remembering how beautiful it was, how she loved taking walks as a child, how there was no iron gate that looked like it was trapping her inside her own neighborhood. How she didn’t have to hear Poppaea screaming drunkenly at her morphling dealers at night, how back before all this, she and Acte and Sabina were normal kids who had never been inside a Victor’s house. How when she was younger she’d never been inside Brutus’ house, the walls covered in photographs of the tributes he’d mentored, and the unspoken grief emanating from every wall in the house because while he’d trained Victors, every mentor saw more of their tributes die than not. “It was by the mountain, so there was always a lot of the snow in the fall and winter and even into the spring. Which a lot of people wouldn’t like, but I loved it. Even in the town center, you didn’t get that. I thought it was like living in a special world all to myself.”

Cashmere smiles at her, warmth in her big eyes. “Wow,” she says, “it sounds like something I would like to see.” She’s quiet for a second. “Show me sometime, if it’s still there.”

“Do you ever go visit your old neighborhood?” Enobaria asks. She knows Cashmere seems to really miss it, and Gloss always tries to put on a happy face, but she can tell he doesn’t feel as at home in his Victor’s Village any more than he does in the miserable, sick Capitol.

“Sometimes,” Cashmere says, “but it’s sad. It’s like something changed and it will never be the same again.”

“Yeah,” Enobaria says. She hasn’t gone back to her old house. Her parents have, a few times. She doesn’t know if she could leave if she ever went back.

They’re quiet for a moment as they walk down the streets, turning past one of the unlit, vacant houses.

“I never told my brother this,” Cashmere says then, making it clear that this is between the two of them. “But you know what the worst part is, sometimes?”

Enobaria gets what she means even before she’s finished. There are so many worst parts of it all that she can’t just choose one. There are just moments when one of the bad parts is more noticeable or active than the other. “Tell me,” she says quietly. “You can tell me about it.”

Cashmere stops walking for a moment. “I miss it, sometimes. And not in the fake way that I’m supposed to say because I volunteered, like oh it was for the grand fuckin’ glory of Panem, when I did it because I thought I would just be called anyway and I volunteered so I wouldn’t be running away from it, so I could know what I would do. I mean, I have the bad dreams, and the thought of going back there- to those awful museum tours they make of the old arenas, my mentor said she did it once and- I don’t think I could do it. But part of me, I still miss it sometimes. Being in there. I still thought there was a chance I could get out, then, you know? That it would be all over if I got out. It was the worst fucking thing that ever happened to me and is that ever saying a lot, given all the shit that happened after, but I miss it.”

Enobaria’s eyes close. She remembers the first night in her Games, her and Aries and Minka and Duke and Padraig and Anahit alive and mostly unscathed and laughing, and feeling like life and death were just two sides of the same coin that had no relevance to her because she and her friends were so far beyond all of that. In fact, she remembers that all the time. Sometimes she thinks about if she could have saved any of them, and that’s almost worse, because that probably would have just meant drawing out their inevitable deaths to come later. When she sees the tributes in training, so determined and bright, sparring with each other as ferociously and innocently as kittens learning to play-fight with one another in practice for growing larger and killing mice, she remembers. Sometimes with the “patrons” she misses being able to throw a knife, to be able to have some degree of power, even if it wasn’t even real because it was given to her as surely as it was taken away when she left, and she hates them all because they do things to her that make her miss being able to kill. Sometimes alone in bed she remembers sleeping on the boulder next to Anahit, alive and safe. 

She takes Cashmere’s hand as they walk ahead. “I miss my friends,” she says, “I think about them every day. I miss believing there was a chance I could just go home and not have to do whatever those evil people make me do.” She’s swallowing hard, and trying not to sniff because her nose is about to run. Cashmere’s hand tightens in hers. “I just want to be young again sometimes. But I can’t. I can’t ever do that again.”

Cashmere is wrapping her arms around her, pulling her in close. Enobaria is crying as silently as she can, her closed eyes salty and warm, like she’s told seawater is in summer. Cashmere’s whole body is shaking, and Enobaria feels as tensed up as she did during her crowning ceremony but neither of them let go. Neither of them, she thinks, want to.

They stay for a while behind Enobaria’s house. They’ll make up an excuse, she supposes, why they were late coming back to the party- showing her around the neighborhood, stuff like that. But for now, they just stay by each other’s sides. They have each other. If they have to be Victors, at least they will share in this.

_

Cashmere’s Victor talent is jewelry designing, which goes well with Enobaria’s talent of fashion design. The news channels, the magazines, the parties so often invite them together; as so many style icons of the Capitol put it, they compliment each other. If only they knew, Enobaria will tell Cashmere under her breath and Cashmere will laugh forcefully, like no one from the Capitol is supposed to laugh, and everyone just assumes their whispers and jokes are the secrets of Victors. Tantalizing, but best not known to the public. Best forgotten by everyone else.

It’s not easy to hide a relationship – and of course they haven’t hidden it from everyone, Gloss knows and so does Brutus although he warns them constantly to be careful – but they, mostly, have. It wouldn’t be accepted at all for them to be open about this- Victors are never supposed to be too close to each other. But either Snow doesn’t know, or he’s biding his time. And if it’s the latter case, Enobaria doesn’t think she would deny it to him if he asked. 

They send each other letters during the off-season, letters that would fool censors and mail-checkers, but that Cashmere and Enobaria both understand the contents of. _I miss all the excitement of the Capitol_. I miss you. _Everyone is all right at home, I still can’t believe this big house!_ My family and I are fine, but I miss the time before, and the Victor’s Village isn’t such a fun place when the parties are over. And so on.

As popular Victors, they always make appearances during Victory Tours. Cashmere visits Enobaria if someone from One wins, Enobaria visits Cashmere if someone from Two wins. In the Capitol, they must go every year during the Games, for mentoring, for “entertainment”- the latter of which happens on and off throughout the year, and often Enobaria and Cashmere are both called on overlapping schedules or the same time. They share patrons, sometimes at the same time, and they share their hatred of their patrons.

One thing they learned as Careers is that sometimes you can hide in the open. Guard the Cornucopia. Strength in numbers. Do these things and more, and you will have a better chance at surviving.

One day they are being interviewed at the opening of a boutique that both Enobaria and Cashmere are modeling for the founding fashion show of, Cashmere in shining pink furs and Enobaria in glittering red raw silk. “The two of you ladies are preeminent among the Capitol’s style icons, and as the audience knows, you are both known for your designs as well as often designing together,” says one of the television journalists, a woman in a green beehive wig. “How did you meet?”

“Well,” Enobaria begins, “I met Cashmere when she won. But I knew about her before that.”

“Enobaria met my brother Gloss when he won the year before I did,” Cashmere explains, refreshing the Capitol’s memory. In case they didn’t remember. When Cashmere and Gloss have no choice but to remember every day, when Enobaria has no choice but to always be thinking about, that they’re all Victors, and what that means. “His feast in District Two during his Victory Tour was actually at the house of Enobaria and her parents in the Victor’s Village.”

“How nice!” says the interviewer.

Enobaria looks directly at the cameras. “But Gloss told me all about Cashmere before I even met her. He said, Enobaria, you’d really love my sister. And I suppose he was right,” she smiles slyly. Fuck you, she wants to tell the cameras, you didn’t bring us together- we did.

“We’re best friends now,” Cashmere smiles at the camera. “I guess sometimes my brother is right about some things.” The interviewer laughs, and then segues to questions about Enobaria’s ruby necklace.

_

Enobaria and Cashmere take advantage of the lack of surveillance on the roof of the Training Center by visiting it often. This place is where they kiss for the first time, where they have sex with each other for the first time. There are no patrons or cameras or game makers or weapons, and if they close their eyes, there isn’t even a Capitol. They’re so far above it all, they may as well be closer to the sky. And they talk about what their lives might be like if people could go between districts freely as they want, and never have to go to the Capitol, and could live how they choose, with who they want, be who they are and not what other people say they are and must be. What the world would be like if it was a completely different place.

One night, it snows in the Capitol, and Enobaria takes Cashmere up to the rooftop anyway, making sure they both have good boots and warm clothes on. They lie on their backs, looking up to the sky. “Close your eyes,” Enobaria says. “Pretend we’re in Two.” And she talks about her home, her real home. “I remember I would be high up above the ground and even if I walked out the door I could just look down on the town. And it felt safe, being able to see everything. Like as long as I could just watch over it, I’d know everything that was happening there. And it would be cold, but in a nice way. The air was so clean and the winds were almost soft against my skin…and in the winters the air would just sparkle, with the snow. People say snow is white, but it’s more like the color of a crystal, when the light shines on it, you can see all colors. And you can go up the mountain, and see so many different kinds of stones, you think, there is so much in the world. And there must have been even more before all of this, before the Dark Days. It must have been even more beautiful. And that’s sad but also…it makes me appreciate home even more. Because it survived.” She can feel Cashmere’s hand interlocking with hers.

“If we could…really be together,” Cashmere says, meaning her and Enobaria, meaning everyone in the districts, both, “imagine how much better it would all be.” They are both quiet, because sometimes imagining what things would be like in another world is just too painful to be worth it. But sometimes they imagine it anyway. No one can stop them from it. That, at least, they cannot do.

Enobaria kisses Cashmere, and the snow falls on them, snow that came from the sky, not the Capitol, something far more powerful, and for a moment, they’re not in the Capitol, even if they can’t be home, they’re somewhere else, a world they created.

_

The year Finnick Odair, the young boy from Four, is the Victor, he takes Enobaria’s place as the youngest Victor in history - he’s still fourteen, and just barely so. Enobaria and Cashmere are more popular than ever, individually and as a pair. Not that they can really have a relationship where other people can see. Sure, the Capitol’s filmmakers can force them to do things on camera together for salacious and expensive videotapes, but they can’t say publicly that they’ll be with each other on their own terms.

Coincidentally, the both of them are scheduled to come to the celebration at a hotel together. Enobaria comes in a golden dress, and Cashmere in a silver one. (Somewhere, Gloss is in pink and white.) Enobaria designed both dresses. Cashmere designed their crystalline jewelry. They do things together in every way that they can. The Capitol allows this because of the great publicity it will bring for two of the country’s most famously beautiful women to be at a Victor’s celebration, especially because they, too, are Victors. Exciting ones. Oh yes, so exciting, the Capitol people think. And Enobaria knows this has to do with the fact that the newest Victor is nowhere in sight and has not been for quite a while, and the thought of it makes her want to take the nearest pillow and scream into it until she’s done. She hates these people, she really does. She wonders if they understand that. If they do, and just don’t care.

(“You know,” Cashmere had said evenly as she could possibly manage earlier this evening, to one of the District Four bettors, who officially wasn’t yet a “patron” of his tribute because of his age, but it still happened, just as it had happened to Enobaria, it always happened unofficially until it could be official, “you’re a fuckin’ child rapist.” She’d looked him dead in the eye, her face still and calm with hatred, for what he’d done to her and Enobaria and Gloss and this new boy and who knows who else. He was a blackout drunk and wouldn’t remember this exchange tomorrow, Enobaria had said to herself, we’re safe.

He’d laughed like she’d made a silly joke. “You’re a district whore who grew up in a tin box,” he said, shaking his head correctively at Cashmere, “and let’s not pretend any of you people are or were children.”

Enobaria hadn’t wanted things to get worse- she didn’t want her or Cashmere or the kid to get in trouble- but she couldn’t just say nothing. “Excuse me,” she’d said, “you’re a guest at this party.” And, so was she, but the point still stood. 

The man had raised his eyes, amused. That was the worst part. It didn’t mean anything to him, and every sick word out of his mouth came out like air, so little he thought about it- it was his reality. “You’re practically a cannibal, Miss Hammersmith,” he’d said to her, “I doubt you were unwilling at that…young and fierce age of your victory.” He’d walked off and laughed to himself lightly. Enobaria had wanted to see him die. People like him were the cannibals, she thought, they saw people as nothing but meat.)

She’s had only one drink at the party – she’s careful, and doesn’t like alcohol much anyway- rum mixed with some kind of soda, and then tried to wash away the taste with a drink of water. But she can still feel the thick sugar and the liquor coating her mouth, and this party is shit and it’s time to get out of here for the time being and clean her teeth. The Capitolites snatched Cashmere away a while ago, and she’s by the door, talking to these fancily dressed guys. Most of them who both Enobaria and Cashmere despise for what they’ve done to them, to others. 

Cashmere turns to Enobaria as she walks by and rolls her eyes in reference to whatever sort of conversation she’s been roped into. Enobaria pantomimes putting a gun to her head and sticks out her tongue in response to the tediousness of it all, and makes her way toward the door and walks faster down the hallway, her teeth grinding, as she’s fairly certain they do in her sleep. She wakes up with her jaws aching every morning. There’s a women’s restroom right near the ballroom, but she doesn’t want to do her routine with people coming in and out, with people asking her what she’s doing.

To avoid conversation, she decides to take the staircase and go up a few floors. The staircase, mostly taken by hotel workers, is unpretentious and smells of paint and metal, almost reminiscent of District Two in its utilitarian looks. As she opens the door and walks in, she stops, because she can hear something. Someone, more like. Someone who tries to go quiet upon realizing they’re not alone, but only draws more attention in their shock. No Capitol lovebirds would come to a place like this to hook up, she isn’t even surprised when she looks between the back of the staircase and the emergency exit door and sees the new Victor. The poor child is bleeding, his face is marked up, and he’s vomited on the floor. He’s whispering something to himself that sounds like _Oh Brigid_ \- Padraig had said that, she remembers- and trying not to cry, although that’s clearly what he’s been doing.

“Hey,” Enobaria says, keeping her voice down.

“Enobaria?” Finnick says in recognition, a slight amount of hope. “Please don’t make me go back,” he whispers, “please. Or they’ll make me do it again.” More than one of them, she realizes with disgust, hating everything about this city. 

“No,” Enobaria tells him, aware that her dismay must show. “I’m not going to do that to you. I was actually going to leave for a little while.” She’s quiet for a moment, trying to think of what to say. Was this how young and helpless she had looked to Brutus? “I’m like you,” she says, whispering, “I know what you’re going through, kid. It’s…” she shakes her head. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” she tells him. He seems to not know how to move, so she gives him a hand and helps pull him up, and he gives a cry of pain once he’s on his feet. He grabs ahold of her hand as she walks up the stairs, just one flight. Enobaria, when she stays in hotels, always likes to be able to get in and out quickly.

No one is in the hallway, which is a good thing, because Enobaria doesn’t want to deal with any of these people and she can bet the kid definitely doesn’t want to either. “Thank you,” he whispers, looking over his shoulder as she unlocks the hotel room door like he’s being chased.

“It’s no big deal,” she says. “I was going to leave anyway.” She gives him a little smile. “Congratulations, you know. On beating my record.” Kind of a shitty record to have, which any Victor would know, and the both of them clearly do, but she supposes it’s a way of saying they’re on the same page.

Finnick nods silently. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t feel very good.” Neither do I, Enobaria doesn’t say, neither have I since before the arena. 

“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to talk about what happened,” Enobaria says, “but it’s nothing you should feel bad about. It’s not our fault when people hurt us like that. We can’t say no, and they know that.” They fucking like that, she thinks, they just love that we can’t say no.

“It’s not just me?” he asks, seemingly confused.

“No,” Enobaria says, seeing her face reflected in front of her, grave and resigned. Her red crystal earrings casting sparkling light over her brown skin, her eyes encircled with golden eyeshadow. She’s in front of the bathroom sink, getting one of her dental floss packs out of the small makeup bag she has full of them in her drawer, so she can do her first flossing, before the brushing. He’s right next to her, having followed her around this whole time.

“When I don’t feel very good,” she begins, and doesn’t add, which is multiple times a day and every time I have to eat, “I clean my teeth. I make sure I do a good, thorough job of it, no matter how long it takes.” She brushes her teeth for what must be the length of a few songs, from what she can hear from the resounding speakers one floor down, and can see in the mirror Finnick absently wiping his nose with his torn sleeve. 

When she’s done, she takes one of the paper cups and fills it again and again, rinsing out her mouth many times and watching the water go down the drain. She takes out the bag and flosses her teeth again, a second time, a third. More. Until she can’t taste any of that drink, until her mouth feels like it’s never felt anything but water and the sterile dental products she’s spent fuck knows how much money on over the years. “It makes me feel a lot better,” she says, turning to Finnick. “Do you want to do it?”

“Sure,” he says quietly, his hand shaking so badly he can barely floss correctly, and he eventually just gives up and takes one of the paper cups and fills it up, rinsing out his mouth and spitting it out more times than she did, and then filling it up to drink, drink like he’s doing shots. Then he’s crying again, quietly, biting on his lip to keep his mouth shut.

“You’re going to find something that makes you feel better,” she tells him softly, but that clearly doesn’t comfort him. So she puts a hand on his shoulder, leads him away and shows him one of the hotel beds, the one she and Cashmere aren’t using, and tells him to just lie down and don’t worry, she’ll put the do not disturb sign on the doorknob, and she’ll knock when she comes back, and Cashmere will be staying with her there too, and at least for the night he’ll be safe.

“I want to go home. I hate it,” he cries anyway, his face in her shoulder, not wanting to let her go yet. “I hate it all so much.”

“I know,” she says, “so do I.”

_

It’s exactly as she planned. Right after she gets her teeth done, her “patrons” stop asking for her. Even as her magazine spreads and modeling gigs increase, as she becomes even more of a style icon than before – all of Panem is fascinated and excited by her, unable to forget her actions in the arena and unable to look away from any look she wears.

The important part is, it worked. She didn’t do this in vain. The goal was that she’d get her teeth sharpened and from there, all of the “patrons” would be too afraid to ever be intimate with her again. They would never be able to look past what she’d been put through- and what it had led her to do- ever again. Of course, in public she’d say it was to commemorate her achievements in the arena and to suit her distinctive style- the gold-edged, sharp teeth did go with everything in her wardrobe.

And if the President ever asked about her, she thinks, smiling to herself, why wouldn’t he believe her? It’s not as if anyone ever thought she was smart, not smart enough to do this on purpose. Only calculating like a killer. Not intelligent, like their enlightened, sophisticated selves. They never consider what she’s thinking- or that she is thinking in the first place. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to, but sometimes she really thinks it just doesn’t enter their minds that hers is right there in her head and works just as well (probably better) than theirs.

“So,” the style reporter asks her excitedly when she’s in a state to make appearances, “what made you decide on this divine new look?” Snow can’t even complain, because the whole Capitol loves what she’s done, and even her “patrons” can’t say she refused them. They’re the ones refusing her. She savors the moment when, at a party, she gives a wide smile to a regular and asks him how he is enjoying the night. His eyes widen and he looks away like he doesn’t know her, and she and Cashmere just laugh.

The procedures hurt so much she can barely talk for days, and for months all she eats is soup. Her jaws and gums and teeth, her whole head ache so badly she can’t sleep some nights. She wouldn’t be getting a good sleep anyway. And it was more than worth it.

_

There’s a costume party in the Capitol and the Victors are invited. They dress Brutus as some kind of wolfman with claws and fur, and Enobaria as some sort of vampire creature in black leather and velvet, blood-red fake nails filed to points. (The next day, the salons of the Capitol will be flooded with customers who request the same manicure.) She adds an extra detail, painting trails of red makeup that look like blood running from the side of her mouth, like she’s just drained the blood of her latest victim. Brutal Brutus and Enchanting Enobaria at the Capitol’s Costume Ball, the tabloids say. Let them say whatever the fuck they want about her, she thinks. They will never touch her again. They’re finally too afraid to.

This how they’ve always seen her, a machine. One command to kill, other commands to do whatever else they like. They were the ones who set her out to kill in the first place. Of course, they also were fairly confident she’d die in there, too. They wanted a killing machine. That’s what they’ll get, she thinks, every time they look at me. They don’t deserve anything else from her.

It feels good, she realizes. Making the people who hurt her be afraid of her. Maybe they’ll think twice before they hurt other people who aren’t allowed to fight back. But, probably, they won’t change at all.

They deserve to be afraid. They deserve to be afraid like she and her friends and everyone else who was in the arena, whether or not they came out. They deserve to be afraid because they’re probably going to spend the rest of their worthless lives doing to other people, other kids, even, what they did to her, and still do to others. 

She flashes her teeth at the cameraman who’s photographing her outfit. Fine. If she’ll never be able to forget what it was like to kill John, then they should have to really think about it, too. And maybe they’ll think about how none of that would have happened without them, and nothing that happened after would have happened without them, either. They’ll probably never understand. But they should at least come close. They deserve to have to live with the horror of understanding.

_

Within a day of mentoring Clove, Enobaria has a sinking feeling that she’s correct in her suspicion that this girl is going to die.

Sometimes, in the years she’s taken the lead as a mentor, she can just tell when they have no idea what they’re getting into, which of course no one really can until they are there, but it’s also that they seem unaware of that, too. They’re not paying it mind, they’re not focusing on what they don’t know. Like it’s an extra credit session at one of their schools. “Guys,” she heard the boy from One a few years ago tell Brutus’ boy from Two and Enobaria’s girl, “I’m so jealous, you get Enobaria, she’s like the hottest woman alive”. They all laughed, and Enobaria’s girl said, “yeah, I’ll bet you are jealous.” Luxor, Attila, and Beryl were their names. Sometimes she thinks about the interviews that year. Beryl said during hers, “I know my parents were worried about me, but I want them to know Enobaria is mentoring me, and with her on my side, I don’t think I have much to worry about anymore.” There had been so much applause. Beryl had sounded so genuine.

Clove, now, has such rage inside of her but instead of honing it, instead of being mindful of it, it’s consuming her, and she doesn’t even seem to realize it. “I’m so thankful to be able to be mentored by you,” Clove says in one of her more solemn moments, and Enobaria wonders what this girl must have been told, what she must have gone through, to have watched her Games and think the way to survival is pure wildfire rage. Sure, Enobaria won by tearing out another kid’s throat. She wouldn’t have won if she enjoyed it a little too much, as Clove seems to be seeing her training as a sort of exciting celebration. She wouldn’t have won if she let anything she was feeling take over her. She didn’t even win because of her scores or odds. She won because she did whatever she had to do, no matter what it was, and in order to do that she had to know what “whatever she had to do” meant.

She’d never say it in any of her interviews, but she also only won after seeing all her friends die. And when she sees Clove race Cato, the boy from Two, around the training room as they laugh like they both have a lifetime of excitement ahead of them, like they’re much younger children at sports practice, she doesn’t think Clove truly grasps this.

Enobaria had to. She never asked to. But she knew she had to. Staying alive, she always makes sure her tributes understand- as every mentor always wants the kids to understand what they need to know - isn’t just about making sure you can hit a target, it isn’t just about eliminating what’s in your way. It’s about you. Because when there’s no one else and you’re the only one left, doing what you have to in order to survive doesn’t stop. She thinks it probably never will.

When Clove lies dying on the ground and Cato, tears cleaning his blood and dirt stained face, begs her to live, Enobaria doesn’t turn away no matter how much she wants to. And she does want to. But she keeps her eyes wide open, unblinking, staring straight ahead all the same. Just like Clove’s frozen eyes that Cato is seemingly unable to bring himself to close when the cannons go off for her.

When you teach a child to be a machine, they won’t know how to be either of those things.

Sometimes Enobaria thinks Two girls come into the world learning how to never look away, not for their whole lives.

_

For the 75th Reaping, she wears a gold headband that looks almost like the circlet crown she wore when she was a Victor. Maybe they’ll kill her this time, regardless of whether or not this rebellion succeeds. But everyone – both Capitol and rebel – is going to look at her and know she is a survivor and she got that crown the first time because she was the last one standing, and that counts for something. To everyone, it counts for something.

When they call her name she isn’t surprised – the Capitol probably wants an excuse to eliminate her along with the blooming sources of rebellion from Twelve. But even if she doesn’t necessarily think any rebellion can survive whatever the Capitol does … she isn’t against the idea of it on principle. None of them are, really, she can tell, even the ones who aren’t practically marching around whistling to mockingjays.

She and Brutus raise their arms in the air and cheer and she decides that if the rebels ever want her, and she thinks they have a real chance, she’ll be there. But if the Capitol wants her to do anything else other than just go through the motions of being a Victor, there is nothing else she can give them. And, while she stopped being afraid of death a long time ago, she doesn’t like the idea of dying for some angry spectacle of the Capitol’s. No. If they wanted her to die in an arena, she decides, they had their fucking chance.

When Plutarch Heavensbee takes her aside and gives her a briefing on the plan going forward, asking her for her support, she mainly wonders why no one tried it sooner. If the rebellion is spreading so successful across all the districts, she thinks, then why did it have to take nearly a hundred years before anyone around here did anything.

_

“Why did you volunteer?” she asks Brutus the night before they have to go back in. They’re on the roof of the Training Center, where no one can hear them.

He exhales, and doesn’t say anything for a moment, as they look over the Capitol skyline.

“Out of all the men, I was the only one who wasn’t too old to have to go back in, or one of my own tributes,” he told her. “But you already know that. That wasn’t the only reason.” She nods, because she had already figured that out, and just wanted to hear him say his reasoning.

“Regardless of what happens, with this whole rebellion,” he says, “we both know that we’re never going to be Capitol regardless of how many times we can survive. If it even takes off the ground ten feet, our names will be on the list of enemies of the state. And why not,” he adds, “even if we don’t become rebels ourselves…they all have to know what we’re thinking.” That we’d support it if we thought there was a real chance, Enobaria thinks, that we’ve been wanting the Capitol to fall down since the arena, since we understood what our lives were. 

Gloss and Cashmere both had wanted to, but thought certainly, the Capitol was too strong, and any rebellion would be annihilated and maybe every district would end up like Thirteen. Enobaria wasn’t so sure if the Capitol would go that far, but she’s well acquainted enough with this place that she isn’t so confident in the girl on fire and that boy and their allies and their ability to get rid of everything that got them all here in the first place. Does she support a rebellion? Sure. It’s about time. But can she be part of one she doesn’t think will have a chance, one that, if and when it fails, will incite the worse Capitol vengeance in history, worse than even any Victor can think of?

“Well,” she says, “I really hope there’s a chance. And if there is.” She gives a half smile. “We’ll make them regret it all. And then we’ll go home.” That’s all she wants, she thinks. She’d be satisfied with going back to her home at the base of the mountain if she can get out of this arena. Maybe that’s all she’s wanted ever since she got out of the first one.

Brutus turns to look at her. “I remember when I first trained you when you were a child…” something in his face darkens. It looks like grief. She doesn’t think it’s her that he’s grieving and has no idea what she can say. “I’m proud of you, more than I can say, Enobaria,” he says, finding the words. “And I’ll be right by your side.” I hope you can be, she thinks, knowing very well there’s a chance he won’t be. And that she was reaped a second time for a reason, because despite how popular she is with the average people in the Capitol, Snow wants her gone, and he always has his reasons. Perhaps because of her popularity. If she supports the rebellion or even shows sympathy, who is to say her admirers of the Capitol won’t take her lead, let alone the people of District Two, who have known her for her whole life?

If she lives, she realizes, she’ll end up in this rebellion one way or the other. She’s already been designated as a part of it. And if it can succeed, she cannot think of any reason why not to be a part of it. Only reasons why she can’t comprehend why it hasn’t happened sooner.

_

At the Cornucopia, Enobaria and Cashmere are awake as night falls.

“You remember when I said sometimes I missed it?” Cashmere asks. “All those years ago?” She doesn’t expand on what she means by ‘it,’ Enobaria already knows. Cashmere probably doesn’t care if the Capitol is recording her at this point because she doesn’t think she’ll make it out, keeps talking about what she wants her or Gloss to tell her family, and vague things about how ‘if you get to, tell the rebels what I would have said,” and anyway, all the cameras are probably on Katniss and that boy.

“I do,” Enobaria says, whispering. Not wanting Cashmere to hear any sadness in her voice.

Cashmere gives a mirthless, barking laugh. “Well now I’m back!” she says, her voice echoing in the Cornucopia.

“And it’s nothing like the first time,” Enobaria realizes aloud. “It’s like…I keep feeling like this isn’t as real as the first time. I keep waiting for something to happen.”

Cashmere looks at her for a moment, looking like she wants to ask what Enobaria means. But both of them know that talking too extensively about the rebellion, which is less impending and more looming, wouldn’t be a good idea to do in the arena. The cameras might be playing up the District Twelve love story, but they record everything.

(Do you see our love story? She wants to say to the cameras. You never took that from us. You never had that much power over us.)

“It’s not even as bad as the first time. I kept thinking before, I can’t do it, I can’t do this again. But now I’m here. And…” Cashmere trails off blankly. Over to their side, Gloss and Brutus are asleep.

“I couldn’t ever stop thinking about it,” Enobaria says. “And now I’m finally back. I think all those years I was just…waiting for it again. It was never going to go away and on some level I think I was just … thinking about how some day I’d have to face up to it.” She’s never said it out like that before, but she really thinks that’s it. Part of her had never left. Part of her was always calling back from the arena, and the Capitol was always screaming her back into it one way or the other, even before the second reaping.

Cashmere nods, tilts her head back against the walls of the Cornucopia, closes her eyes. “If this is facing up to it…” she sighs. “I accept. I’m ready.”

Enobaria swallows, and in the dark, extends her hand to Cashmere’s. Don’t say that, she wants to tell Cashmere. But neither of them would ever be able to tell the other what to do.

Cashmere is almost inaudibly whispering, and Enobaria realizes in all the years of the Games, the broadcast doesn’t show _inside_ the Cornucopia. At its mouth, but really further. “Whatever happens. I never want to go back to the Capitol. I can’t. if you join them…” they can barely see each other in the dark, but they know each other’s faces enough. “Go to where my home was. Not the Victor’s Village. My real home. Put a stone marker. Any stone. You’re from Two, you know so much about stones, choose the one that you think suits me best.” Cashmere’s voice cracks. “And my brother. With him or for him, whatever happens.” Enobaria shudders, trying not to cry even as her eyes fill with salt water, so similar to the waters all around them in the arena. In the shadows, Cashmere tries to smile. “Give them hell. I know you will.”

Enobaria leans against Cashmere, her head on her shoulder, not letting go of her hand. “I’ll make everyone understand,” she says. The Capitol, the rebels, everyone in this country, she thinks, they’ll all know soon how wrong this all was. And it will finally be over.

“Cashmere, I-” Enobaria starts to say. They’ve both said it before. “You know how I feel. How I will always feel.” She thinks, if it came down to her and Cashmere, the way it had for Katniss and that boy, Cashmere might ask Enobaria to live. But Enobaria wouldn’t do anything to her or let her do anything to herself, and she wouldn’t do anything to herself either. She’d say, if you want to see a rebellion everywhere, here you have one; and the two of them would stand together and not back down. There are only so many times you can hurt someone before they fight back. And Enobaria has been wanting to fight back for so long.

Cashmere is crying, drops of water landing on Enobaria’s forehead. “I do too,” she says, taking deep breaths. They are quiet for a few minutes, against one another.

“You’re going to make it out of here,” Cashmere says, half a whisper. “I know you are.” Enobaria has no answer, she only holds Cashmere in her arms as Cashmere holds her, until their hour is over and it’s time for the others to keep watch.

_

When the arena begins spinning, and Cashmere’s body goes into the water almost immediately after her cannon goes off, Enobaria and Brutus have no choice but to run unless they don’t want to die alongside her, too.

At night, she sees Cashmere’s face in the sky, right before Gloss. She couldn’t get the body, and she’ll probably never have it. What does the Capitol do with the bodies of dead tributes? She’s never known. 

A rose quartz marker, she thinks. One for her, and one for Gloss. Both of them with crumbs on top, sustenance for their journey. Shining and rough and unmistakable. Quartz, like her father’s name, she thinks. In another world her father could have been Cashmere’s father in law. In this world…all she can do is survive first before she can think about making a better one. Survive, and lay to rest everyone she’s cared about who has gone to the next life.

_

On the third day, the dome of the arena starts falling, and Enobaria knows the time has come, and there will be no going back no matter which side is victorious. She stands and looks up at the newly exposed sky, and begins to see a mass of fire raging in the air. She closes her eyes, the fire hard as the sun on her sight, and prepares for what she will see when she opens them.

_

A year after Presidents Snow and Coin are both dead, Enobaria supposes it really is over, as over as it can be. Everyone says it’s over, they’ve called it, like it’s up to them to decide when one era ends and one begins. The prerogative of those who write history is defining it.

Yes, she voted for the Capitol Games, a vote on a proposition that has not and likely never will be made public. She didn’t actually think they would ever really happen. The people in the districts- and she should know, she is one- weren’t out for revenge primarily, even if it was something they wanted as well. That wasn’t what the rebellion was about. It was about making the necessary moves of getting out of the arena the Capitol had trapped them all in. If there was any resistance to the idea of the Capitol Games, and there would have been, in this new world with “free speech,” as they call it, Coin or whoever would have had to call them off, or lose Panem forever. And no one would likely have pursued it further. People in the districts were too busy trying to rebuild their own lives to do much else, let alone take anyone else’s life. She voted for them and she doesn’t regret it and she wouldn’t deny it. But she knew they’d never happen. She just had to say it- a taste of their own medicine. As if to purge it all out of her system.

It still appears sometimes all the same.

_

She and Katniss Everdeen will never be friends, but by this point, they respect each other, there is no bad blood between them. Katniss had said on the news that she’d tried to get Enobaria out of the Capitol along with her other captive Victor friends because it had been the right thing to do. “The right thing to do.” Enobaria can respect that. But Enobaria doesn’t know how she’ll ever forgive Katniss’ husband for killing Brutus. Even if it was in the arena. Even if she and Beetee have forgiven each other for fighting nearly to the death.

Every so often, the Victors are called together- maybe not all of them at once, sometimes, though. Often just a few of them. Nothing bad, nothing she really minds, even if it’s hard. News panels.

Days of celebration, such as the first annual Peace Day, which is today. Earlier, they were photographed all together for the newspapers and magazines. She, Beetee, and Annie Cresta had been placed next to one another, just as they had been placed to stand next to one another at the execution of Snow which had turned out to be the execution of Coin, probably because they were the outliers. The ones who didn’t really have anyone else in the club of surviving Victors, not really. Not like Katniss and her husband and Haymitch and Johanna, forever bound together. Beetee and Annie really aren’t so bad, and they seem to get along with Enobaria, which she wouldn’t have expected, although it makes sense. Beetee isn’t really the kind of person with many enemies, and Annie gets along with pretty much everyone who doesn’t automatically write her off as “the crazy girl”. The three of them talk outside of things like this. Annie doesn’t mind late night phone calls, and Beetee is always trying to get them into his new technological communication inventions, which Enobaria doesn’t have any issue with. It’s interesting. Gives her something to think about that isn’t horrible. And the two of them are, in a lot of ways, like her – because they understand.

Now, there’s an outdoor celebration outside of what was once Snow’s mansion. There’s talk of putting a memorial statue to the tributes of the Games in front of it, which is what she and Beetee and Annie are talking about while their fellow Victors are somewhere else, while politicians and reporters talk to one another. The cameras aren’t so interested in her anymore. She thinks that’s for the best.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Annie says under her breath, in that way she does, as if she doesn’t know the volume of her own voice. She was a Career once, just like Enobaria. The final two left in the whole world. At some point, she thinks, they’ll both be ready to talk about it. She hates how everyone acts like Annie is completely made of glass, including her brain. She didn’t survive this much to be condescended to like that.

“Yes,” Beetee says in that equally strange way, that makes him sound like he’s figuring out some kind of great discovery. “So that everyone can remember. That way, if the past is never forgotten, it can’t be brushed aside, it can’t be excused.”

They’re quiet for a moment. “I’m not saying anyone is wrong,” Enobaria begins, “but it feels strange to celebrate. Even if this is Peace Day.” Being able to say openly what she really feels is still something she’s getting used to. “I wake up every day and I have to forgive myself. Other tributes. For what we had to do. And sometimes, some days, I can’t. And it’s hard to celebrate when everyone’s still putting things back together.”

Beetee and Annie both nod in understanding, if not agreement. She doesn’t forgive the people from the Capitol who forced her into the Games, who forced her to do whatever they wanted them to, her and all their other “favorites”- she can live without forgiving them, and they’re nothing to her now, maybe that is a victory. It’s not about them. What it is, is more complicated. Sometimes she forgives herself, forgives John, forgives Rosario. Forgives Sabina for not warning her even when she was too young to really understand. Sometimes it’s difficult.

She still doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive Johanna for Cashmere, and very often she doesn’t want to. She understands, she knows who the real enemy was. Ultimately, it’s Snow’s fault, and Snow left a trail of destruction through Johanna’s life too. Recognizing that doesn’t make the loss and grief aren’t any less.

Sometimes she envies Annie, because Annie at least is allowed to acknowledge the fact that she’s a widow. Because Annie’s husband was killed by mindless beasts created in a lab, and the woman who Enobaria never would have been able to marry in either Snow or Coin’s world was killed by a human being who had been through the same things they all had, who wasn’t so different from any of them, who is one of the few people who understands from experience what she went through and goes through every day. 

She wonders sometimes if Beetee doesn’t forgive Gloss, for killing Wiress, for nearly killing him. But if he hasn’t, he seems to have not held his actions against her. She supposes that is healthy of him. To not let Snow pit them all against each other, even in death. Enobaria hopes she isn’t letting that happen, when she has a hard time forgiving.

“The fact that we have survived, I think, can be both worthy of celebration, and a cause of grief,” Beetee says after a long moment. “I think we all wish none of this had to come at the costs that it did.”

Annie nods vacantly. “You can say that again,” Enobaria tells him wearily.

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real,” Annie says reflectively. “I really never in my life thought anything in the world would get better.” She takes a drink of some of the liquor that’s being served. There are drinks, but Enobaria isn’t having any, or any of the food. It’s still hard to eat around others. But lately, she feels like she wants to eat more often. And her teeth feel clean even if she doesn’t take so long on them as before. “I was a very angry child. I had so much rage and had nothing to do with all of it and that made it worse. And sometimes I still feel like that. It should have gone away by now. But…” she shakes her head and seems to go vacant again.

“No, I know,” Enobaria tells her. “It hasn’t entirely gone away either.”

“I don’t know that it ever will,” Beetee says. “For me, for anyone.” Both Enobaria and Annie look at him, expecting him to say more than that. “Maybe it shouldn’t. If nothing of how I felt from before was left, then it would feel like I forgot. I think I would prefer to keep some of the pain than to have it all be numb or just gone. I don’t have to only feel that forever. It just can’t be all that I feel.” He pauses for a moment. “At least, that’s just me.”

Some people are laughing nearby, Enobaria notices. She can hear the flash and click of cameras.

“Well, maybe it isn’t just you,” Enobaria says, thinking that maybe Beetee is right, and maybe the reason why trying to get rid of the pain feels so hopeless and wrong, is because it isn’t the right way to heal from it after all. She smiles. “I guess you have a point. They tried to kill us how many times? They tried to make us into machines. But we’re not. We never were. And we’re still here.”

Annie smiles at her. It looks real, and people rarely smile genuinely at her. She thinks Annie can probably say the same. A killing machine, a crazy girl, and a living computer, that’s what people saw in the three of them since they were children, but they’re not children anymore. And the era of them existing to be seen and interpreted by others, Enobaria supposes, is at least one of the eras that has ended.

They are their own people, not who anyone tells them to be. Enobaria thinks that just may be the most important part of all of this. The thing that maybe people are realizing now, something in the world that might get better.

_

No one lives in the Victor’s Village in District Two anymore. Many of the Victor’s Villages have been vacated, or they were destroyed in the war, or the people who lived in them were killed. Sabina and Poppaea, both killed by the Capitol.

Enobaria has personally seen some of the other Victor’s Villages- one thing about now is that people are freer to travel between the districts.

She hasn’t gone to where Cashmere told her to go yet. She hasn’t yet contacted Topaz and Hennessey Lejeune. She hasn’t got the rose quartz headstones. But it’s only a matter of time before she does. She’s found their new address and telephone number, she’s been thinking of what to say, but also, she doesn’t want to give them something she prepared. She thinks when she gets ahold of them, she’ll know. And from there, they will begin.

The Mayor of District Two has asked her personally to consult him, among a panel of other people including contacting some of the other surviving Victors, for help on creating a memorial for the Victors and tributes of Two, where the Victor’s Village is now. She has provided her thoughts on which stones she thinks would be best. The Mayor surprised her by embracing her and crying when she came to his office. When she asked if he was all right, he said to her that Two lost so many of their children, to the Games and the war, and lost almost all of the Victors, too, and that she must have blessings coming to her in the next life, to have survived so many times over what others did not.

“I’m sorry,” she had told him, knowing his son had been a rebel who died fighting for this new Panem. “I’m…glad to be here.” And it hadn’t been a lie, she just wasn’t so sure if she knew what to say, to someone so openly expressing their pain and hope and loss, someone she did not even know. But it had been real, she could tell, and he wasn’t expecting or demanding anything from her. He was just talking to her like he would have talked to anyone else.

More and more people, Enobaria finds, are talking to her that way.

_

The process for the creation of the memorial is going efficiently.

One day after Enobaria gets home from the Mayor’s office, she goes right home. Home is not the Victor’s Village. It is also not the house she grew up in, the house that was destroyed in the war. It is a new house, that she and other people from her area of District Two young and able enough to take part in the process (she hadn’t let her parents, now aging, do it) had built, as many people needed to have new homes built. It is on the other side of the mountain, overlooking not the town center, but the woods, the river. It is just minutes away from the North side of the town. At specific times in the day, she can hear the trains go by- travel, business, news, anything people want to do, going anywhere they want- and she can feel it reverberate through the floors. If she closes her eyes and opens the front window she can hear the river. Through one of the side windows, she can hear people in town, cars, music sometimes. Young people running back from school shouting and laughing.

(The day she had returned home from the Capitol and managed to find her parents, they had embraced her just as they had when she got back from the Victory Tour. Her mother had cried so much Enobaria had worried if she was all right, and her father had kept saying, I knew you would come back, I knew you would. And she had remembered that there were people in this world who loved her, who really knew who she was. And that had felt like surviving.)

“You’re smiling,” her mother says, as they have dinner, as if pointing out something unusual but not unwelcome, like warm rain in the sunshine.

Enobaria blinks back to attention. “I guess you don’t see me doing that very much,” she tells them. “Not that the cameras don’t expect me to anymore.”

“For what it’s worth,” her father says, trying lighten the mood, “we always thought your designs were much better than those strange things Capitol people came up with. You had talent.” She doesn’t point out that she still designs, though instead of beautiful clothing, she now designs memorials. Maybe one day, she will go back to the clothing, once the memorials have been taken care of. Maybe she will do all sorts of things.

“We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to, though,” her mother says. Enobaria wishes she could tell her mother that she doesn’t have to worry about protecting her, that when Enobaria needed protection most, there was nothing her family could have done, and she doesn’t blame them for it. There is no one left to blame. Maybe that is a good thing.

“It’s all right,” Enobaria says. “We can’t act like it never happened.” Her mother looks a bit startled, then relaxes. “I was just thinking,” she says, unsure of how to begin. Both her parents are silent. As if waiting to hear what she will say. “That it’s a different world now. And this place survived it. And that just makes me love it even more…” Yes, she thinks. Not just appreciate. Love.

“I was talking about this with someone I was very close with. A while ago I talked about this with her when she was still alive.” Her parents look to each other, exchanging a helpless glance. Don’t worry, Enobaria wants to tell them, you don’t have to rescue me. “We were wishing the world could be better. And thinking that…maybe it could be better one day.” Neither of them had dared to sincerely hope it would really happen, but they had both wanted it, talking about in another lifetime, how things could happen. Maybe in this lifetime, they had said. Enobaria thinks, well, maybe in this lifetime after all. “I wish you could have met her,” Enobaria adds. In this lifetime, she thinks- you deserved to be there for it, Cashmere. 

She sees Cashmere in the snowfalls, when it first comes down, sparkling in every color when the light hits. In the small rose quartz crystals on the ground when she takes walks. On the old concrete-paved outskirts of town, where the sunsets are vivid and where the landscape is open to the horizon as Cashmere described her childhood home. In herself, when she looks in the mirror and sees someone who has survived, someone who is loved, someone who no one could control.

“I’m glad she had you,” her father says. Sometimes Enobaria fears her parents are afraid of her, see only how she’s killed when they look at her. But most of the time, she thinks that can’t be the case. Somehow, they don’t see. Or, somehow they have seen all of her, and they still accept who she is. Which is rare for a Victor. But Victors are rare in this day and age. And she doesn’t think there’s a question about whether or not her family truly sees who she is.

Her mother smiles sadly. “I’m sorry, Enobaria,” her mother says, “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you.”

Enobaria just smiles at her, her mouth closed. “Don’t be sorry, Ma,” she says. Everyone who should be sorry already is, or at least, they were when they were alive, she thinks, but doesn’t burden her family with. And anyway, she doesn’t feel sorry. The fighting is over, and while fixing things isn’t always a joyful process, it’s necessary, and ultimately will make things better, and feel better. The past will still follow her, but it will be in the past. She’ll never have to mentor a kid and watch them die again. She’ll never have to go back in. No one will ever make her do anything again. And she’s home, for real. There had been days where she’d almost given up on home. “We survived,” she says. “No one can take that from us.” And they’re going to keep surviving, her and her family and her people in this district, and no one can take away how they will survive and what they will do to create a new and better world, and it won’t be overnight, but it will be worked on every day.

“Bless us in the next life,” her father says the incantation over his plate of crumbs, now that they have finished dinner, Enobaria sees. She hasn’t eaten much, only about half, but she supposes she’ll save the rest for later.

“Bless us in the next life,” she says along with her mother. Because she will not forget those who are in the next life, and she knows that whatever improvements come in this world, they will all be able to see it from the other life. A new world they all created or imagined or fought for.

Bless us in this life, she thinks. Maybe in the past, blessings were only things to take and hold onto for dear life, or things to just imagine. Now they are also things to create, things to be proud of. Things to have achieved. Things to value and love.

Every day she forgives, or she doesn’t. Herself, the other tributes, the other Victors, living and dead. Forgiveness, she thinks, isn’t something that happens once and for all. Some forgiveness is easier, more affordable, than others. It’s something you decide on every day, and sometimes you say yes, and some days you say no. But today, Enobaria thinks, she forgives.

For the first time in a very long time, she thinks, she is truly happy. She doesn’t say this out loud, but she thinks, her family can tell.

Enobaria made it home. That, she thinks, is one of her blessings in this life. The first of her victories that have not brought pain. Her first true victory.


End file.
